neon epiphany

You were waiting for it, right? McDonald’s trip report!

The lovely item pictured above is the Chicken Fan-tastic. The first thing you’ll notice is the packaging, which resembles a large fry cup, sealed on both ends. the sandwich is removed by pulling on a tear strip about a third of the way down, which leaves you with a convenient carry-and-eat case. As you might be able to tell by looking at the photos, McDonald’s has succeeded in making the “official” menu pictures of these sandwiches frightneningly unappealing. Too much texture, I think.

The formed-rice “buns” are savory and surprisingly unmessy, Imagine grilled patties of mushroom risotto and you’ll have the general idea. The Chicken Fan-tastic contains a battered breast filet with a strongly seasoned crust, as well as mayonnaise and lettuce. At times the flavors of rice and batter come in conflict, but overall — moderately tasty. The beef version contains slices of beef and grilled onions in “teriyaki” sauce, though I use scare quotes because I couldn’t taste much flavor from inside the sandwich at all. Here the strong flavor of the rice patties are deifnitely a minus.

(Incidentally, two sandwiches is a bit much. The rice makes these much heavier than your average bun-equipped fast food sandwich. Am recommending finding a group of like-minded adventurers if you want to try both…)

Anyway! Fans of onigiri and omusubi probably need no further convincing. But i think the real winner here was the small Nestea honey pear iced tea with which i washed down my bites of sandwich. I detest normal lemon Nestea, but this flavor was super-yummy. If only we had it stateside!

As an aside, McDonald’s in Hong Kong also has a “grilled chicken burger” on the menu, which turns out to be a sandwich containing Cantonese soy sauce chicken breast, complete with skin. It looked really good, but I wasn’t equipped to give it a try. I may even have exhausted my tolerance for fast food this trip, so unless there’s special demand, we’ll end here.

Tomorrow: off to the mainland. Expect internet access to sporadic at best, so please don’t worry if I disappear for a bit. Drop me a line so I won’t be lonely when I log in, okay?

(more photos after the break)