Save me
Save me, again
Make me
Make me lose you, and then
Save me
Save me, again
Make me
Make me use you, and then
Another Tuesday... another Taste? Hey everyone. Been a while. I miss anything fun on Tuesdays while I was gone?
Since this is the first one of these in a while, just a quick rundown on the TT situation before we dive into the sauce of this review.
Quite some time ago I stopped doing these every week for mostly financial reasons, but also to be honest: I was running out of ideas within the framework. Review a restaurant chain (ideally fast food) every week that has at least four locations... sounds easy. But after doing about 75 of them? The definitions were beginning to stretch, and my appetite for trying and reviewing different items at the same places over and over again was the opposite of appealing. For instance, the initial run of the Tuesday Taste ended with me comparing the BK Big Fish against McDonald's Filet-O-Fish. The defense rests.
And yet, inspiration has struck so we're back! Forever! Yeeeeeah... not really.
I genuinely loved doing the TT every week but for many reasons it can't become a permanent thing at this point in my life. Maybe if a newspaper/online publication paid my expenses....? (keep dreaming). But! The good news is that the Tuesday Taste is indeed back for a limited run. Every Tuesday, for the next ten weeks (maybe twelve, we'll see) I'll be checking out and reviewing some notable food chains... just like the way we used to do. However, since this is a temporary revival, I'm skirting my initial limitation of "four locations or more" and will check out a few spots 'below that rule' throughout Toronto I've been meaning to wander upon. It's an excuse to try them and plus it gets me out of the house. Beyond spending dough, I see no downside.
Anyhow, housekeeping over. Hiatus over. Here we go! Let's kick this glorious return off with the finest of cuisines... a shining light among the highest chefs seeking epiphanies to perfect their craft... the sword in the stone amidst everything I've ever spoken about in these reviews. Ladies and gentlemen... the McRib.
Truly no worthy eyes have ever set their gaze upon such a magnificent cut of prestin--- okay enough with this shtick. You're thinking it, I'm thinking it... this thing looks like shit. Like, actual shit. I'll avoid the tired AVGN similes (sorry James Rolfe) to describe precisely what kind of shit it resembles... but yeah this thing simply looks terrible.
Brown is just rarely an appealing colour, right? I mean... brown hair is lovely... chocolate of course... brown leaves on an Autumn day... deliciously darker ales and lagers... there are many exceptions! Alas, when something looks rather runny atop a log-like piece... the jokes become too easy.
We are getting ahead of ourselves and frankly the appearance of the McRib had little-to-nothing to do with my overall impression of eating it. Instead, lets go back in time for a while.
The year is 2003, think I'm in Grade Ten, and still watching The Simpsons every Sunday night (at 8!). A rather forgettable episode about Lisa in a spelling bee (some good gags but I legit had to Google which one this was) is aired, but the B-plot is about Homer falling in love with this limited time menu addition at Krusty Burger: the Ribwich. He falls for it pretty hard (a Requiem For A Dream reference even), and eventually joins a band of "Ribheads" (yeeeeah... okay) who travel the country following the Ribwich around at every city it stops at.
As a story... yeah it's pretty stupid, and a mountain below Simpsons at their absolute best. But! The whole 'Ribwich as an addictive drug sandwich' thing is memorable, and certainly stuck with me. I'm writing about it right now for cryin' out loud. Imagine the surprise when soon afterwards, fifteen year old me discovered that McDonald's actually had a rib sandwich as the basis of this parody... it kinda spooked me. Since we didn't have it in Canada at the time, and American fast food chains are essentially like ours except completely turbocharged... my young mind developed a bizarre association towards this particular item.
Eventually I grew into an adult ("yeah right" is the correct reaction) and when the McRib at last visited Canada for a brief period in 2014... I made my Ribwich jokes and thought nothing else of it. You see, I'm a weirdo (the opposite reaction of the "yeah right" above) who doesn't drink coffee and also just doesn't like McDonald's at all. Hunger has legitimately been the preferable option, and if not for these reviews I'd probably have eaten McD's less than five times in my adult life.
Yet... the McRib coming back... the Tuesday Taste coming back... both only for a limited time... both notorious for tons of filler that signifies little substanc-I-mean lets finally talk about this darn sandwich! Hope you missed me.
To echo my earlier point: yeah it looks terrible. At least the Ribwich used a hamburger bun instead of a hot dog one, although considering the shape of ribs this real version makes a lot more sense. Also: I know my experience is very (intentionally) limited but McDonald's buns just suck. Like, truly just consistently the worst. It's not like any of the big fast food burger chains have good bread... it's processed bread in a high volume food space, I get that. Yet, even so McD's are always uniformly stale throughout. No other fast food joint has buns this consistently dry-spongey, and it has just always bugged me since I started reviewing their items. If I ever go to McDonald's again I might become one of those "lettuce bun" people*... this is how bad they are!
*for the record, this is a joke. If you have a gluten allergy or are trying to avoid carbs this switch makes perfect sense. I'm just 'ribbing' you... haha! see what I did there? okay sorry back to the review
Now the McRib itself. It's an incredibly simple concoction: rib patty, sauce, pickles and onions. As a foundation, simple does not mean bad and with good quality ingredients this combination makes a lot of sense. I don't like sliced white onions (hurl your pitchforks) and so my McRib only had pickles, which eliminates some of that stingy sweetness you get from an onion but trust me this thing doesn't need any more sweetness.
The sauce. Maybe I'm biased because I love both BBQ sauce and sandwiches slathered to the point of dripping... but this McRib sauce is actually rather solid. Definitely a sweetness and a tang, and you can tell the 'rib' portion is mass-produced because with good ribs the BBQ sauce rub will seep into the meat of the fresh rack. Please, please, don't be so shocked at this revelation. But honestly... if you like BBQ sauce this is indeed quite nice. It is on the sweeter side but it doesn't overstay that welcome... which is good because there's probably more sauce on here than anything else, including that pathetic bun.
The meat! Again, I'm a legit weirdo and so at one point was checking this rib patty to see if/how it'd been de-boned. I'm fun at parties too. No but seriously, it's obviously pork rib meat that has been blended together and reformed into a shape that resembles a half-rack. As such... you get that uniform taste of pork rib throughout, for better and (definitely) worse. Some of the fun when eating ribs are the meatier tender bits versus the fattier greasy bits... each bite is different. Not here.
To be fair, for a processed pork rib patty is this pretty okay. You taste some manufactured char, it's uniformly juicy, whatever. Indeed, I used to order a similarly tasting rib patty sub from the Mr Sub across from Jesse Ketchum school in junior high. It was one of their premium ones (seven bucks? In 1999 dollars? Oh no!) and was a special kind of treat compared to the usual cheap pizza subs I'd go for. Of course, Mr Sub wouldn't drench their minced rib patty in BBQ sauce (just a slight brush of it) and you could add which toppings you wanted on it... which segues into my final thought here.
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Overall. I don't recommend the McRib, but probably for a reason you don't expect. It needs more. Sure, I got it without the onions but even then, I don't think a superhero team of pickles and onions are saving this thing. No, what it needs is coleslaw. Something with crunch and vinegar (or creaminess, depending on your slaw preference) to add another element. I mean, with meat of this particularly meh quality and production there likely isn't much saving that can be done... but it could be at least more interesting.
I legitimately thought the sauce was alright, but that's all you taste throughout this adventure and even I don't like my sandwiches that saucy. I haven't even described the pickles because what's the point. If you haven't noticed that omission by now, then yeah case closed.
Sadly enough, this was one of the better McDonald's items I've reviewed. Probably even the most enjoyable. At least it was sort of different and interesting... unlike eating plastic on those previous occasions. The McRib isn't good, hell it's far from good... and the messiness of it probably makes its marketability logistically difficult when a significant portion of your revenue are from Drive-Thrus. Well, Drive Thrus don't like cyclists (trust me I've tried) and for a sitting down and eating experience: a McRib is an extremely 'whatever' one. The greatest praise I've ever given McDonald's. And my heart grew seven sizes this day.
Tuesday Tune
If like the McRib we are back for a limited time, gotta bring back some of the features. I've been on a bit of a kick with these guys lately (it's quite a catalogue) and their latest album is the best record they've made in over a decade. Really good. Here they are performing one of those tracks on the likewise awesome KEXP radio/YouTube channel (check them out too... lots of great bands have passed through that studio):
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Thanks for reading, it does feel good to be back. While we're starting on a dud I definitely have some very cool spots (I hope) to review in my quiver, so stay tuned! Same Taste channel, same Taste day. Until next Tuesday... stay warm and don't spill that mustard.
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