STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY CAIT CARTER
It is only when you actually try to taste a fast-food burger that you realize what you’re getting into.
The plan was simple: figure out who made the best fast-food burger so that everyone could enjoy it.
I bought from five different places- heading from drive-thru to drive-thru, piling up brown paper bags in my passenger seat as I collected the burgers.
I was preparing myself for what would be an extremely difficult challenge.
I was going to eat all of these when I headed home, and deem one the champion.
Once they sit in front of you though, the allure of a burger is lost. Bright golden bun and meat look especially unappetizing when sitting next to another of its kind, and the magic of the fast-food combo is gone when you realize you’re not eating with fries.
But my role is to help, to provide guidance to the masses who see the closest burger and devour it just like I used to. We need to know which one is better, and which don’t make the cut.
And so, with a pile of napkins from various restaurants in one hand, and appetite in the other- I began.
McDonald’s
The McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with cheese is one of its most popular burgers; the flavours of salty-sweet pickle and ketchup were strong, along with the creamy texture of the processed cheese. What was missing was the meat, which you could only taste when you looked for it and had a greasy, thin flavour. The bun was dry and flaky, and didn’t add much.
Rating: 5/10
Wendy’s
Wendy’s measures its burger patties by quarter-pound as well, so I grabbed a one patty burger along with cheese. I’ll admit Wendy’s was the one I guessed would win. I’ve been a loyal fan for years. But when I took a bite I realized I had been blinded by this loyalty. There was no burger taste at all. The entire thing tasted like a mix of processed cheese and mayo sauce. The lettuce on the bun was stringy and limp, and I could only vaguely taste the onion. The bun was squishy, adding to the lump of sauce I was eating, and by the end, I couldn’t taste anything but mayonnaise. Wendy’s, you let me down.
Rating: 3/10
Burger King
Burger King had the most expensive burger- its Whopper set me back a whopping $7, which I wasn’t all that impressed by. But their burger was also the biggest by far, nearly one and a half times the size of the others. It also had the thinnest patty to make up for this. Burger King was surprising. You could taste the meat in their burger, though it had a greasy feel. All the vegetables could be tasted- there was onion, lettuce, tomato and pickle in there, which was pleasant. I’d order it again, if only because it tasted like what I had asked for.
Rating: 7/10
Harvey’s
Harvey’s gave me the problem of dressing the burger myself. So I gave it the same treatment as the others- lettuce, onion, tomato and pickle, along with the classic relish, tomato, mayonnaise, and my least favourite sauce- mustard. I say this for a reason, but remember that I did put every sauce on- I tried not to hold a bias against the evil yellow sauce. But I took a bite, and mustard was all I tasted. I looked at the other burgers- they all had mustard on them, but this one had an overwhelming flavour that drowned everything else. Not even the pickle could be tasted- let alone the patty. I tried the meat on its own and was disgusted to realize that it was leaving oils inside my mouth, and then it hit the trash. Get it together, Harvey’s.
Rating: 2/10
A&W
A&W was a last-minute decision- I nearly forgot about them on my list of burger joints. But I headed over and purchased the Mama Burger- a single patty with cheese, just like the others. The mama was the cheapest burger- $4.50 with cheese. When I took a bite, I found myself surprised. This tasted like something I could make a home. The meat wasn’t as greasy as the other places had offered, and I could taste it without searching for the flavour. I could taste onion, ketchup, mayo and cheese- all accenting each other nicely. The bun was a little dry, but I am willing to forgive it for a burger that tastes that good.
Rating: 8/10
The Verdict
After that many burgers, I was happy to deem A&W as the winner. It had the burger that tasted the most real, and ended up being the cheapest.
Now excuse me while I write up 10 reasons why I won’t be eating a burger for the next three months- I’ve had my share for a long, long time.