McDonald's just announced that it's going to change the way it cooks your burgers, but we're saying right here and now that it's not going to make them any tastier or worth the ever-rising price. We see right through your PR crap, Ronald.
The "improvements" that were announced might actually make for better burgers in a one-off restaurant or at home, but when you're talking about a giant fast food chain, there's only so much you can do that would actually improve anything. Here are the changes:
- Softer buns that will be toasted for slightly longer
- Cheese that is actually melted onto the burger instead of just being slapped on cold
- Increasing the temperature of the griddle so the patty might actually sear
- Throwing the little bits of onions on the burger while it's cooking
- More sauce on the Big Mac
Did your eyes roll back into your skull as hard as ours did? Things like "melted cheese" and "seared meat" seem like they'd be standard for cheeseburger construction, but not at McDonald's apparently. "Makes me wonder why that needs to be an improvement and not done that way from the beginning...," says u/ChaserNeverRests in a thread on r/fastfood, echoing what we're all thinking.
First change: adding air to the tires. pic.twitter.com/lbdIOHrpSD
— Kevin C. (@Natterforme) April 17, 2023
And then there's the Big Mac change. "More sauce?" asks u/shenan. "There's already giant lettuce-riddled splorbs of the stuff all over the place." In our experience, there's either way too much or too little Big Mac sauce to go around. Simply enforcing consistent standards would go a long way.
The changes have already been implemented in a number of cities, mostly on the West Coast, but will be nationwide by next year. They'll only apply to the teeny tiny tenth-pound patties that you get in the hamburger, cheeseburger, McDouble, double cheeseburger, and Big Mac.
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There are a couple things that aren't changing though, and they're the real kicker: The burger patties will still be frozen, and the burgers will still be cooked in advance and held in a warmer until they get to your car window. Lovely.
The only objectively good part about this whole improvement campaign is that an old nostalgic favorite character is being resurrected to promote it, complete with jailbird stripes and mysterious mask. "I'm just happy that they are bringing back the Hamburglar!"
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