I had the misfortune of having to go to the mall the other day.  I tend to avoid that place, even at the best of times.  Over the years I’ve seen many of my favourite stores close, and be replaced by clothing outlets targeting a certain demographic that I simply do not belong to.

But this particular night I was on a mission, and apparently that meant having to go to the mall. 

While I was there, I decided that I needed to get something to eat.  I’d been at work all day, and really hadn’t had much throughout the day.  I looked at the options available to me in the food court.  There weren’t many.  I opted for the shortest line.  Three teenage punks crowded around the counter, yapping with their 2 friends on the other side of that counter.  As I suspected, they weren’t actually ordering anything, and stepped aside as I approached.

“We don’t have a cashier right now, but if you tell me what you want, I’ll start your order” one of the young guys said to me.  Umm… ok.. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but I told him what I wanted… chubby chicken burger combo…

Then I stood there with my bank card in my hand, while the young punks started gabbing again.  It didn’t take too long for my food to finish.  I watched one of them package it up and set it on the tray…  But he couldn’t give it to me, because I hadn’t paid for it yet. 

Then other people started to line up behind me.  The couple of guys behind the counter panicked.

“Our cashier isn’t here.  She went for a smoke…”

What?

That was enough for everyone else behind me.  They left.  I stood there and looked at my food… so close, yet so far…  the two guys behind the counter actually left and went back out of view, probably because they couldn’t stand there looking at me, looking at my food. 

That was it.  I’d had enough.  I should have jumped over the counter, grabbed my food, and sat down.  That would have showed them!  Of course, I probably would have just thrown out my back or something trying to get over that counter.  (Yeah, I know that there’s a little swinging door)

So I left.  I’m a pretty patient guy, but there are limits to my patience, and watching my food get cold while some girl is out having a cigarette, and no one else is able to run the cash register…  that’s too much, even for me.

I contemplated calling the next day and asking to speak to someone older than 16, but I couldn’t be bothered at this point.

It’s not easy coming up with a fast food offering that I won’t finish.  Congratulations to Pizza Hut for doing just that!  I have no idea what’s in the sauce for their new WingStreet wings, but it’s pretty gross.  You know that it’s not a good sign when two guys buy 20 wings, and eat 5 of them (I only had one!) before pushing them aside.  If it hadn’t been a take-out order, I seriously think that I would have sent them back and asked for a different flavour.  The medium buffalo wings are not hot in a spicy sense at all, and taste more like vinegar than anything else.  I could feel it burning through my sinuses, and make my eyes water, yet they didn’t taste hot.  It’s weird. Although, I will admit, they look fantastic in the TV ad.

Seriously, save your money and avoid these.  I suppose that it’s possible that we had a bad batch, but I’m not willing to spend any more money on these to find out. 

Yuck!

Well it had to happen sooner or later.  I’ve been watching the A&W ads on TV for their new sirloin ‘Uncle’ burger for awhile now, but A&W isn’t some place that I frequent often.  I tend to find their burgers extremely salty, and apparently salt is now my enemy.  But today was a special day.  I needed to get out of the office and go for a walk, and I found myself standing in front of the A&W admiring the large poster.  It looked so good.  I could almost hear it beckoning my name. 

$9.25 cents later, I was walking away with an Uncle Burger combo, which included my fries and (surprise!) a root beer. 

Oh it’s big, alright.  It’s big, it’s messy, it’s salty, and it probably took a few days off my life.  But they’re the ones at the end…  According to A&W’s nutritional information, the burger alone was worth 710 calories, which is probably a little less than some of the other tasty treats that I’ve consumed from McDonalds or Burger King.  The 1490mg of salt isn’t a huge surprise.  I’ll be drinking water for the rest of the afternoon, I think.  It’s kinda gross.  (the salt taste, not the water)

The other guys watched me eat it.  “Was it worth it?” one of them asked.  No.. probably not.  It wasn’t horrible, but it isn’t something that I would want to repeat any time soon.

I am curious about those tiny little baby sirloin burgers that they sell, but I just don’t think that they would fill me.

Maybe next time.

I hate that stupid monopoly game.  I’ve spent enough money at McDonalds that I should be given an engraved platinum-plated board, with a permanent residence on both Boardwalk AND Park Place!  But for some reason, when I asked the young guy behind the counter for a game board to keep track of all my “sorry, please try again, loser!” stickers, I was told that they don’t send them to the restaurants, and that I had to download them from the website.  (Since when is McDonalds a restaurant, anyway?)

What?

For starters, if memory serves me correctly (less and less likely each day, it seems) those “boards” weren’t anything more than a glossy piece of paper.  I somehow doubt that McDonalds saves a ton of money by not printing those and shipping them to the restaurant. 

For seconds, what about the poor little old lady who has no idea what a PDF document is, or how to find it on the McDonalds site?  What are THEY supposed to do? 

Now I realize that the board is completely irrelevant to actually WINNING anything.  Whether you have one, or don’t, as long as you have the proper game pieces, it doesn’t matter if you tack them on a board, or a strand of toilet paper.  But that’s not the point.  When I ask for a game board, I’m expecting them to HAVE a game board, not have to go through the bother of having to look one up online, and print it out.  And let me tell you, it’s nothing spectacular.  You’d think that they might have put a little bit of effort into creating that board.

Nope.

Not impressed.

One of my friends recently told me a little bit of interesting information.  If you order the Double cheeseburger from McDonalds, you will pay $1.69, yet if you ask for a McDouble, you will get the exact same burger except that it’s on the value picks menu, and costs $1.39, $0.30 less.   I couldn’t understand the logic of this, but hey… stranger things have been known to be true. So I did a little comparison shopping, and I think that I’ve come to the root of the conspiracy.  The McDouble is the exact same burger as the Double Cheeseburger, except that it has a single slice of cheese.  Is that enough to make up the $0.30 difference?  I don’t know.  I’ve tasted both of these, and I can’t tell the difference.  I can taste the cheese, but to be honest, it’s not like one was cheesier than the other.  So what’s the end game?  Are they going to phase out one burger?  Are we going to see other variations of the same burgers?  Will a McChicken without lettuce be called a McCluck, and costs $0.20 less?  We’ll just have to wait and see…

I stepped onto the scale on Monday evening.  Hmm… up 5 pounds from the previous Monday.  Normally I weigh myself in the morning, so perhaps that was part of it.  Oh wait!  Nah.. it was the return of the McDonalds diet.  Yes, that was more than likely the culprit. 

I doubt that the 3/4 lb Greco donair helped much either, but that was a mistake.  I had forgotten that they added the larger donair to their menu.  I’m so used to saying “Give me the biggest donair that you’ve got” and getting the 1/2 lb version, that I instinctively used those same words this time.  It should have been a hint when he said “That’ll be $10.71″   That’s quite the donair!

Ugh.  I brought it back to the office, and proceeded to make it my personal challenge for the remainder of the night.  When I was about half way through it, I had to come up for air.  This thing was killing my desire to live.  But it would only get worse as the night went on.  At the end of the day, rampant hunger prevailed and I reigned supreme as the victor! There can be only one!

So it should not have come as a huge surprise when my weight was up again.  It’s not like I’ve been anywhere near the gym again.  Oh wait… I walk by it on the way to work.  Oops..  So I have been near it.  I just haven’t been IN it. 

And here I am tonight.  I had the munchies, and the only thing open is the damn 24 hour McDonalds.  I’ve developed an appreciation of the Big Mac.  I’ve always been a Quarter Pounder guy, but I’d grown tired of those.  Well, let the Big Mac take its place for a bit.  Yummy.

• Big Mac   540 calories
• Large Fries   560 calories  (wow)
• Med Coke   220 calories

Grand total   1310 calories.

So essentially I can’t eat until Friday afternoon sometime.

french fries (stock.xchng)

I was out with my buddy the other day. We decided to go grab something to eat, as we had nearly 2 hours to kill before the start of GI Joe.  We ended up at Burger King, and ordered the special of the day, two Double Whopper Junior combos. We took our time, chatting about everything under the sun.

Then he looked at me and said “I don’t really like these fries.  Do you want them?”

“Sure!”  So much for the diet.

“I really like Deluxe fries” he said.

“Not me.  They’re tasteless.  I need gravy with them.  Tack on another $1.75″

And it got me thinking.  Who makes the best fries?  Personally, I think that McDonalds has the best ones.  I’m sure that they sprinkle them with crack cocaine, or something that makes me want to keep going back to them over and over.  Even if their burgers leave something to be desired, to me their fries are heaven.  I especially love how I can find one under the seat when I’m cleaning out my car, and it looks just as fresh as the day I bought it.  That takes talent!

Burger King’s fries are ok.  Nothing to write home about, but better than Wendy’s.  Wendy’s fries are tasteless.  I haven’t eaten enough at Harvey’s to really offer an opinion.  KFC USED to have good fries, but they seem to have changed them over the years.  I usually get a small gravy, or just go the full distance and smother them with cheese and gravy.  Mmm… poutine… God’s gift to mankind.  Deluxe fries are bland and tasteless.  The day that they forget to put ketchup in the bag is usually a horrible one.  Yuck.

But I thought that it might be fun to throw it out there as a poll.  I’m testing new things all the time, and this is a great way to test PollDaddy’s (why does that just sound so wrong?) service.

These restaurant chains are all available locally.  I did not include some of the others that are primarily only in the USA.  I’ve eaten at a few when travelling in the States, but since they’re not here, and most of my readers are here, I left them out.  I did include an “Other” category though, just incase!