Rice Burgers
When we entered McDonald’s today, I don’t know what possessed me to deviate from my streak of ordering the same old cheeseburger and trying out that much publicized “McDo Rice Burger”.
Probably because it looked interesting, and it helped that the guy in the new advertisement looked cute too and we all know that I’m shallow like that. Probably because it wasn’t my money I was spending and I wouldn’t have felt bad if I tried something horrible-tasting. Or probably because several people had mentioned that it tasted good, was more filling than a regular chicken burger, and had fewer calories too. Whatever the reason was, I then decided to appease my gastrointestinal curiosity and order that innovatively packaged rice burger.
“What are these black thingies on the rice?”
“Are there black sesame seeds?”
“They probably got burnt. The others look fine.”
“What’s this violet thingie?”
“Red cabbage?”
“Onion skins…?”
“I got Chicken…. with RICE.” This was Cesar. I laughed. “You can make a rice burger too.” He probably wanted to eat his rice with the customary utensils, while mine was shaped like a bun, wrapped in paper and inside a box. Of course, he had a point, because rice isn’t really meant to substitute buns, else it would completely fall apart before it reaches your mouth.
So how does the Rice Burger version two-point-zero hold? Genius! They made the rice stickier to hold it all together. It was sprinkled with sesame seeds (to fully enhance the “naah, you’re really eating bread!” feel), toasted on the outside, but still soft and sticky, all in all.
Actually, it was TOO sticky, I realized, the more I ate. This was shown by the fact that it had a tendency to be annoyingly glued to my teeth and the roof of my mouth, and after every bite, I had to lick my teeth and remove the persisting gooey rice bits. Needless to say, it was one of those really uncomfortable eating experiences, and I just bit on the chicken and left some of the rice on the box. I figured that those with braces would probably scrape their tongues from trying to disengage the rice from the metal, and I’m sure, if I brought this home to Lola, she’d have to remove her dentures and scrub hard.
Some genius.
You’re right on the less calories part… it’s taking me so long to eat this, and the mere effort of dental cleaning per bite counteracts the amount of food I eat. If I chewed this long enough, it would probably form some kind of glue, and I wouldn’t be able to move my teeth anymore. Then the more I try to chew, the more it would become, and it would go up to my nose! Then I wouldn’t be able to breathe anymore! Then I might die from eating this piece of---!
But you’ve got to hand it to McDonalds. They’ve got the packaging right. It was cute and new. You rip off the middle section of the box and then eat it with half a box that acts as a “holder” of the rice burger. And the ingredients, the red cabbage, the sesame seeds, the other weird things that they can put in there to make it look more “gourmet” and expensive than usual, I had no problem with that. It was actually pretty tasty if I forget the hard time I had with consuming it.
So there you have it, the RICE BURGEEEER. The answer to luring oriental palettes inside the red and yellow clown’s house. Taiwan loves it. Japan, with its rice balls and similar consumer products would be sure to adopt it. It already has been branded as the product to “launch the company to global domination” because of how it captures the taste of Asia with its East-West infusion…
Global domination? Bleeeeh. Screw oriental palettes. McDonald’s should just do what it does best, which is to serve Western fast food, and people will still come and buy their cheeseburgers. And cute guy in their commercial or not, we should leave the chicken-rice combo expertise to Jollibee.
Probably because it looked interesting, and it helped that the guy in the new advertisement looked cute too and we all know that I’m shallow like that. Probably because it wasn’t my money I was spending and I wouldn’t have felt bad if I tried something horrible-tasting. Or probably because several people had mentioned that it tasted good, was more filling than a regular chicken burger, and had fewer calories too. Whatever the reason was, I then decided to appease my gastrointestinal curiosity and order that innovatively packaged rice burger.
“What are these black thingies on the rice?”
“Are there black sesame seeds?”
“They probably got burnt. The others look fine.”
“What’s this violet thingie?”
“Red cabbage?”
“Onion skins…?”
“I got Chicken…. with RICE.” This was Cesar. I laughed. “You can make a rice burger too.” He probably wanted to eat his rice with the customary utensils, while mine was shaped like a bun, wrapped in paper and inside a box. Of course, he had a point, because rice isn’t really meant to substitute buns, else it would completely fall apart before it reaches your mouth.
So how does the Rice Burger version two-point-zero hold? Genius! They made the rice stickier to hold it all together. It was sprinkled with sesame seeds (to fully enhance the “naah, you’re really eating bread!” feel), toasted on the outside, but still soft and sticky, all in all.
Actually, it was TOO sticky, I realized, the more I ate. This was shown by the fact that it had a tendency to be annoyingly glued to my teeth and the roof of my mouth, and after every bite, I had to lick my teeth and remove the persisting gooey rice bits. Needless to say, it was one of those really uncomfortable eating experiences, and I just bit on the chicken and left some of the rice on the box. I figured that those with braces would probably scrape their tongues from trying to disengage the rice from the metal, and I’m sure, if I brought this home to Lola, she’d have to remove her dentures and scrub hard.
Some genius.
You’re right on the less calories part… it’s taking me so long to eat this, and the mere effort of dental cleaning per bite counteracts the amount of food I eat. If I chewed this long enough, it would probably form some kind of glue, and I wouldn’t be able to move my teeth anymore. Then the more I try to chew, the more it would become, and it would go up to my nose! Then I wouldn’t be able to breathe anymore! Then I might die from eating this piece of---!
But you’ve got to hand it to McDonalds. They’ve got the packaging right. It was cute and new. You rip off the middle section of the box and then eat it with half a box that acts as a “holder” of the rice burger. And the ingredients, the red cabbage, the sesame seeds, the other weird things that they can put in there to make it look more “gourmet” and expensive than usual, I had no problem with that. It was actually pretty tasty if I forget the hard time I had with consuming it.
So there you have it, the RICE BURGEEEER. The answer to luring oriental palettes inside the red and yellow clown’s house. Taiwan loves it. Japan, with its rice balls and similar consumer products would be sure to adopt it. It already has been branded as the product to “launch the company to global domination” because of how it captures the taste of Asia with its East-West infusion…
Global domination? Bleeeeh. Screw oriental palettes. McDonald’s should just do what it does best, which is to serve Western fast food, and people will still come and buy their cheeseburgers. And cute guy in their commercial or not, we should leave the chicken-rice combo expertise to Jollibee.