Before you dismiss me as a corporate-hating elitist…well, maybe I'm the former, for sure. But I do not reflexively hate McDonald's. I still maintain their ham Egg McMuffin is one of the great fast-food creations, one that spurs me to eat four in a sitting, while their small apple pies, gooey and crunchy, remains delicious. My father swears by their Filet-O-Fish, the only American food he regularly consumes besides–I kid you not–the New York steak 'n' eggs from Norm's, which I also love.
All this said, I've never liked McDonald's hamburgers, whether the Big Mac, their cheeseburgers, or any of their specials. They just have no flavor, are shoddily constructed, and always offer patties that I feel are barely grilled, if at all.
But when McDonald's announced they were debuting a Jalapeño Cheddar McChicken sandwich, I felt it was my Mexi duty to try it, to see how spicy it might be given the company was claiming in Spanish it was picante.
]
Look at this limp, disgusting thing! The slice of white cheddar was waxy; the chicken, dry; the bun, tasteless. The burger as a whole was barely cooked, per McDonald's operating practice with its sandwiches. But the biggest offender were those darn jalapeños. Was I asking for to much in assuming whole slices would be included instead of a jalapeño spread, tossed with other ingredients, a spread too salty and with an unpleasant pickled aftertaste? Is it asking for too much to expect jalapeños to, you know, taste like jalapeños, to wait for its floral, zinging flavor to seize your senses for even a second? Might it have been too bold for me to wish that the jalapeño actually had heat?
I couldn't finish the Jalapeño Cheddar McChicken. Leave it to McDonald's to make jalapeños pointless–hell, even three decades of jalapeños left in containers at ballparks haven't brought down the pepper…
