Less than a football field away from the closest McDonald’s to my apartment is a Wendy’s. Said Wendy’s has a sign touting fresher is better. Said sign corresponds to a commercial Wendy’s runs about their fresh never frozen beef. Said frozen beef is a reference to the McDonald’s 90 yards away.

Correction: Was.

In case you haven’t heard, McDonald’s is making the great leap forward. And, apparently, that leap to fresh beef starts with the rollout of the Signature Crafted Garlic White Cheddar Burger.

Which is convenient because if the moon is made out of cheese, and the cow jumps over the moon, it really is one small leap for mookind. But I digress.

Say what you will about fast food burgers in general, but McDonald’s burgers have (had?) a specific taste and texture that some people happened to like in a kind of lowbrow comfort fast food sort of way.

The new patties are definitely a step away from that. With visible surface browning and what appeared to be sea salt on the patty, the beef looked like something I could have made at home. And the taste is altogether beefy —- more nuanced, rounded, and meaty than I remember. But the patty, aside from tasting drier than the average Quarter Pounder I’ve had in the past, didn’t taste well-seasoned or particularly succulent. As someone who grills a lot of burgers myself, I’d compare it to ground sirloin. Beefier, yes, but noticeably leaner and less flavorful.

The good news is the burger construction is engineered for what my friend calls the executive bight. Carefully placed lettuce and tomato, as well as the slightly sweet bun, do wonders to round out the taste. Meanwhile, the garlic chips and aioli leave a distinct and savory garlic flavor that brings together all the flavors and makes your breath smell like the equivalent of three roasted heads of garlic.

While I wanted to love (and I mean LOVE) the sharp white cheddar cheese, its flavor on the burger is less impressive than its flavor on its own. Unlike past McDonald’s “cheddar” cheeses, the slice actually has a bit of funk, but within the burger it gets lost amidst the beef and the garlic aioli and chips. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s sort of a waste of an otherwise perfectly good slice of cheese.

There was a time when I might have said $5.19 is too much for a burger. Well, that time was in college and considering I’m about to be 30 and no longer use “adult” as a verb, I’m willing to pay $5.19 for a good fast food burger. And make no mistake about it, the Signature Crafted Garlic White Cheddar Burger is a good burger by fast food standards.

Just be prepared to eat a Tic-Tac afterwards.

(Nutrition Facts – 620 calories, 300 calories from fat, 33 grams of total fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, 95 milligrams of cholesterol, 95 milligrams of sodium, 49 grams of total carbohydrates, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 12 grams of sugars, and 31 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $5.19
Size: N/A
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Beefier fresh beef patty than traditional McDonald’s burgers. Excellent double whammy of garlic taste. High quality ingredients make $5.19 price tag a bargain.
Cons: Leaner-tasting patty lacks juiciness and richness. Quality of cheese is lost against garlic flavor.

Don’t mention Rick and Morty. Don’t mention Rick and Morty.

On a recent episode of Rick and Morty… Dammit!

Do I need to give you guys a recap of McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce Mania?

Fine.

Here’s the CliffsNotes version – a plot line in a time-traveling episode centered on McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce from the 1990’s. Rick and Morty fans, being some of the most boisterous on the net, demanded Mickey D’s bring it back. They did. It was a disaster. Only some restaurants carried it, and entitled fanboys lined up outside like they were getting Hamilton tickets. Few succeeded. The “lucky” patient few started selling them on eBay for laughable prices, and that’s how I got mine.

Here I sit $375 poorer finally ready to try a sauce that escaped me as a child. Wubba Lubba Dub Dub!

I’m kidding. McDonald’s acknowledged the demand and brought Szechuan Sauce back. You can pretty much get it anywhere for free with your order.

The sauce smelled like Asian ginger salad dressing to me, which I’ve always been fond of. I had to remove it from the packet to see its brownish orange color. It also had little black pepper flakes –- more on those later.

My flavor vessel of choice was the McNugget because it seemed like the obvious choice. After a dip, I noticed Szechuan had basically the same viscosity of BBQ sauce.

I apologize for being all over the map of Asia, but the flavor profiles put me in mind of multiple sauces that span different countries. I got mostly teriyaki flavor, a little sweet and sour, while also putting me in mind of that much thinner soy-based sauce you get with an order of shumai or gyoza at a Japanese restaurant.

There was definitely a little ginger, some tang, and a pinch of citrus which I thought was from something like orange zest, but that’s not a listed ingredient. The major “flavor” lacking here was any heat whatsoever. I figured those pepper flakes would provide a nice kick, but any spice was negligible. That was disappointing.

Overall, it’s a solid McNugget sauce. I haven’t had it in years, and after eating four of them, I coulda crushed a 20-piece without much struggle.

If I had to rank Szechuan Sauce against the rest of the McDonald’s dipping sauce roster, it would land smack dab in the middle. It’s not overtaking classics like BBQ or Honey Mustard, but it’s better than Sweet and Sour. I also don’t care much for Ranch and Buffalo, so keep that in mind.

If McDonald’s decided to put out a Snack Wrap with Szechuan Sauce, it would be excellent. I’m no marketing genius, but McDonald’s should have taken advantage of the hype and released a couple other menu items that featured this sauce.

So yeah, this stuff is good, but not worth the ridiculous hype. Ya boy Rick Sanchez made it seem like Ambrosia but it’s just a run of the mill, solid dipping sauce.

(Nutrition Facts – Not available.)

Purchased Price: $1.29 for the Nuggets – I got 2 Sauce Packets for free. (To eBay I go!)
Size: 0.90 oz.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Basically a light spin on teriyaki Sauce. A solid dipping sauce. McDonald’s giving the (obnoxious) people what they want. Bonus sauce packet. McNuggets nostalgia. A review 20+ years in the making. I know how to spell “Szechuan: now.
Cons: That entire Rick and Morty fiasco. Not having a Snack Wrap with Szechuan on the current menu.

Peeling back the bun of my McDonald’s Signature Swiss Mushroom Melt revealed that the employee who made my burger obviously has something against mushrooms and wanted to punish the ones in my order by drowning them in the garlic and herb spread.

Or maybe that’s how they’re made because the promo photos my local McDonald’s have been posting to social media show a liberal amount of spread. Either that or the burger has rabies.

(Image via Hawaii McDonald’s Twitter.)

Along with the garlic and herb condiment, my McDonald’s Swiss Mushroom Melt featured seasoned, grilled mushrooms, two slices of Swiss cheese, and a 1/4 lb. beef patty on a sesame seed bun. Much like other Signature Crafted Recipes, you can also have it made with crispy or grilled chicken and get it with an artisan roll.

If you like mushroom and Swiss burgers because of those two ingredients, this one will disappoint. The spread hides the flavors of the shrooms and Swiss as effective as a Klingon cloaking device hides a Bird-of-Prey ship. But the sauce also hides the fact that the beef patty is somewhat dry.

It might’ve not been so bad if the spread was flavorful, but it doesn’t have a strong garlic or herb presence. It’s mild enough to negate the flavors of the mushroom and cheese, but not strong enough to give it a memorable flavor. Yes, even with all that sauce blasted onto the mushrooms. The beef patty’s flavor does come through a little, but that doesn’t make this burger worth it.

I can understand the reasoning behind adding the garlic and herb spread. Every time McDonald’s comes out with a new burger line there’s bound to be a mushroom and Swiss version and they’re all pretty much the same — sautéed mushrooms, mayo, and Swiss cheese. The condiment makes it different, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t make it better.

NOTE: This is only available in select markets.

Purchased Price: $5.39
Size: N/A
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Not available on McDonald’s website.

The way I see it, eating McDonald’s at two in the morning is the only way to eat McDonald’s. The atmosphere is so laid back and amicable.

The employees openly discuss their love lives and curse at each other. Everything is drowned out by the sound of old Lionel Richie songs and whatever’s airing on Fox Sports 2 (usually infomercials promising to improve your golf swing). And best of all, nobody even cares that there’s a guy in the back, taking pictures of his four-piece Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Tenders meal like he was examining a C.S.I. victim — with the flash on and everything.

The more cynical sorts out there might take a look at these newfangled McProducts and immediately assume they’re nothing more than elongated nuggets. Not true. While the white meat may be indistinguishable from the McNuggets we all know and love, the breading tastes much different.

I pick up the subtle flavor of the buttermilk batter, and the overall coating is noticeably spicier than the average McDonald’s chicken offering. The texture is also a bit grittier than what we’re used to from the chain. Imagine a breading halfway between the regular Chicken McNuggets outer shell and Popeyes’ Handcrafted Spicy Tenders and you’ve got a fairly apt description of what we’re working with here.

But that’s not all. The all new chicken tenders also come with what McDonald’s is billing as its “Signature Sauce,” and all in all, it isn’t too shabby. I suppose the best way to describe it is a mildly tangier Catalina (French) dressing or a slightly spicier-than-normal blend of Thousand Island dressing. Regardless, it’s quite zesty, and the teensy-tiny hint of spiciness should be palatable to even the tamest of taste buds.

And even if you don’t particularly like the Signature Sauce, the cardboard chicken tender carrier case comes with a handy-dandy double slot so you can wedge in a pair of sauce containers. As an avid sauce connoisseur, I’d suggest pairing the tenders with both the Sriracha Mac Sauce and the McRanch dressing (a great chaser to offset the spiciness of the former, naturally.)

On the whole, I’d consider the Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Tenders to be a fairly decent – albeit somewhat bland – addition to the extended McNugget family. The tenders themselves are surprisingly long (three to five inches, approximately) and they will fill you up fast, especially when doused in a goulash of sauces.

One word of warning, though: NOTHING goes well with the amalgamation of honey mustard, habanero ranch, and spicy buffalo sauce, except a bottle of Maalox.

(Nutrition Facts – 3 pieces – 370 calories, 190 calories from fat, 21 grams of total fat, 3.6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 70 milligrams of cholesterol, 910 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugar, 28 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $3.99
Size: 4-pieces
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: The breading has a unique taste and texture. The tenders are crisp, juicy and filling. It’s a lot of fun to test out how the tenders gel with all those sauces and dressings. 
Cons: The Signature Sauce is a bit too weak. The tenders probably would’ve benefitted from being just a smidge spicier. The horrified glare of strangers as they watch you mix the creamy southwest dressing with Sweet ‘N Sour Sauce.