I Finally Tried a McRib

[canyonwalker]

Several days ago I had a jones for fast food and found myself at the McDonald's drive-thru. That gave me an opportunity to try something I've been curious (morbidly curious) about for many years, the McRib sandwich. How was it? Well, for starters, I'll skip all the mouth-watering marketing images and show you what landed on my plate IRL.



Yeah, that's... not exactly what it looks like in the ads. I mean, it's not unrecognizable. It both looks and tastes like what I expected it to.

BTW, why'd I wait so long to try one of these? It's because it's not a regular item on McDonald's menu. It only comes around every year or two, for a limited time. An article in BusinessInsider years ago showed a correlation between drops in the price of pork and the availability of McRib.



Basically, the conclusion goes, McDonald's trotted out this special whenever they saw a sale on pig parts. And not even every store had it. Last time McDonald's offered the McRib it wasn't available at any of the restaurants in my area. This time is different because McDonald's promised that all stores would carry it. And so I finally found it for sale locally.

So how did it taste?

The meat is, totally unsurprisingly, one of those pre-formed pork patties, the kind that has a fake shape like a rack of ribs and fake grill marks. It's similar to what I've seen served at other inexpensive restaurants. But was it lower or standard quality? I couldn't be sure because of the amount of sauce. Seriously, if there's one tip I'd give McD's on this it'd be "Use half as much sauce." Though that could simply be one kitchen employee with too heavy a hand on the BBQ squirt gun.

As for the sauce... too sweet. Partly that comes down to individual taste. I prefer a slightly tangier, less sweet BBQ sauce.

The bread was forgettable. I don't have high expectations for fast food buns, but even so I do expect a bit of texture. A BBQ sandwich deserves a roll with a bit of texture. The first word that came to mind for texture was "soft". Like, yay, it's not hard? Seriously, the bun was only minimally competent as a delivery device for the meat inside so my fingers wouldn't get covered in sauce while eating it... which they did anyway because there was 2x the appropriate amount of sauce.

So, now I've tried the McRib. The 15+ year wait is over. I'm not in a rush to go back for another. It wasn't bad; it was about typical for a McDonald's sandwich. It wasn't particularly cheap, over $9 with tax in a combo, so I'm not sure I see a lot of attraction except when I have a strange jones for one. If they even have it next time I have a hankering.

Comments

[trent_goulding]

I'll admit straight up that they're trash, but...I still really like them. Whenever the wheel spins around again and they come out from hibernation, they become my default McDonald's order until they disappear again. But yeah, I'm not going to even try arguing that they aren't trash.

[canyonwalker]

I wouldn't quite call them "trash" but, yeah, I haven't been a fan of McDonald's for... decades. For years once I moved to California where there's so much good food I avoided the whole chain, visiting them maybe once a year or so when I needed a meal on the go and there wasn't anything better around. Last year I started to go a little more often, once every month or two, as I discovered a game that makes eating at McDonald's slightly amusing. I order stuff from the value menu and revel in getting a tolerable meal for $5-7. That's half of what I pay at fast food chains I like better. Plus, Hawk dislikes them less than most of the other traditional fast food chains I prefer. It's a place we agree on not being worse than "Meh". Or maybe "Meh-minus". 😂

The bargain-hunter aspect that leads me to McDonald's every once in a while is why I mentioned the $9 price of the McRib combo. And for that $9 I wasn't even full. For that kind of money there are a lot of other places I'd rather go, even if they cost a few bucks more.

[publius]

Oh, no, they're definitely straight up trash. But they do fill a niche. I haaaaate the raw onions in them and always ask for it without, though.

[canyonwalker]

Raw onions don't agree with everyone's digestion. I like raw onion in modest amounts, as a garnish, while a friend of mine regularly piles on an entire layer of them. No problem in my book asking to 86 them if you don't like them. I ordered my McRib without pickles since I hate the flavor of pickles.