Greetings Steemians, today I'll be showing you something I can confidently say most of you likely won't have the opportunity to eat in your lives! Sure, I think you've probably eaten at its outlet before, but this MacDonalds sandwich is only available for a limited time in just one country: Singapore.
This isn't the first time 'my version' of this American fast food joint has whipped out unusual menu items. Have you ever heard of the 'Salted Egg Yolk Burger'?
Spoiler alert: It sucked. So when MacDonalds announced their new local-dish inspired sandwich, I wasn't too keen at first. Also, I'm just gonna go on record here and say it; I'm lazy as hell and since MacDonalds delivers to literally every corner of this island I live on, (even at wee hours of the night) I eat it more than I care to admit.
In fact, I just ate this earlier today, and also ordered it for lunch the day before; so be grateful I had to wolf down so much fast food for all you lovely people. What's that? You didn't even care or wanted to see this? Oh well, onto the 'review'!
There's the full set of new items, including Criss Cut Fries, Coconut Pie, Bandung McFizz, and Chendol McFlurry, in addition to the sandwich itself. If you're not from South-East Asia, you're probably wondering what the hell 'Bandung' or 'Chendol' is, but we'll get to that. First, let's see whether my friends were right and if this 'Nasi Lemak Burger' isn't another failed abombination.
Surprise surprise, it actually came out to be pretty good. Shockingly enough, it also actually tasted just like the much beloved local delight. 'Nasi Lemak' is a Malay fragrant rice dish, cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaf. MacDonalds included it's signature sweet chili sambal sauce, along with it's familiar cornflake coated chicken thigh meat, fried egg and onions.
Obviously it didn't (nor could it) incoperate every part of the dish, such as the beans and ikan bilis (fried anchovies). That being said, give this sandwich to any Singaporean or South-East Asian without any context or naming it, and they'd smile and ask you why it tastes like the quintessential rice breakfast around these parts.
The chicken was of a lot higher quality than what I'd normally expect from MacDonalds, and the chili sauce matched it well with the fried egg and toasted roti (a type of flatbread) buns.
I did however spare the cucumber slices after taking a bite with them. Sure that's what Nasi Lemak is meant to be eaten with, but I much prefer the pickled version of a cucumber and can't really stand the taste of 'raw' cucumber too much. Let's move onto the next part of this meal; but only after snapping my brother giving Max a try himself.
Let's see what the other sides are all about. Here we have the 'Bandung McFizz' (pronounced bun-dong) instead of the usual soda or fruit juice.
A couple of years ago while I was still schooling, this was quite the popular drink. A coffee shop near my school sold this quite cheaply and I often picked up a cup of it, either on the way home or had it together with lunch. Having to experience this again brought back some fuzzy teenage memories, which is kinda funny to me. I recall a group of friends who formed a social circle with me called the 'Badung Clan', but I won't go any further or you and I'll cringe to death.
The Bandung McFizz is a nice break from the usual soda, and it isn't overly sweet which the orignal drink can be from time to time. The downsides are that it''ll cost you a little more to upgrade your cola to it, and you'll get a much smaller portion instead of the usual medium or large cup. After two cups, I'm still not sick of it so that has to count for something right? No?
On with the coconut pie!
Did MacDonalds lie to us this time? Not quite, but this isn't exactly revolutionary or any much superior to the regular apple pie. I will still commend them because innovation, especially in the fast food industry is hard to come by. Also come on, it's just fast food; I'm not really expecting anything too substantial.
It's got a pearly coconut-esque filling, a lot less pastey and more runny than what one would imagine. What's interesting is that they also include 'nata de coco', a chewy, translucent, jelly-like food produced by the fermentation of (you guessed it), coconut water. Take a closer look in this second picture and you'll see a couple of the little cubes of em.
There might seem like a lot of coconut influence so far, but it's all pretty subtle so the flavours shouldn't kill you (at least not before the preservatives do). It's definitely worth a try, just not what I'd go out of my way to order or crave for, despite me liking coconut quite a bit myself. Lastly, and unfortunately my least favourite part of this meal, the 'Chendol McFlurry'.
What's Chendol? It's an iced sweet dessert that contains droplets of rice flour jelly that look like green worms. I kid you not, it also comes with (once again) coconut milk and melted palm sugar syrup. It's also served commonly alongside with red azuki beans, actually scratch that; I always see it served with red azuki beans.
Speaking of the dessert, the 'worms' may look unappetizing to you, but please try to judge it only after you've had a taste of them yourself! The unique look is part of the charm and you're missing out if you skip out on them, during your trip to South-East Asia sometime in the next 50 years.
It was far too sweet for my liking, and the gula melaka sauce (melted palm sugar) did not leave a good impression. Unlike the sandwich, it didn't remind me very much of chendol, aside from having little green worms in it. I also took long enough to get to this that it melted signficantly, so let's give this a flash freeze and another try.
Nah still don't really like it. Let's wrap up this review shall we.
I'm sorry they're uh, like MacDonalds fries but more like the curly ones in criss cut form. Not much else to say really. I guess I liked them but it's nothing much to write home about.
The sandwich was my favourite part, it's way better than any of the other special ones Singapore's MacDonalds has had to offer so far. The promotion for it started on 13th July, the 'Nasi Lemak Burger Feast' being what I ordered.
Totaling up to a cost of 10 SGD/7.30 USD, it comes with everything I've listed here, aside from the Chendol McFlurry, (an additional 3.50 SGD/2.60 USD) but I won't be missing that. You can also order the sandwich by itself for 6.50 SGD/4.75 USD, but I don't think that's really worth your money.
You'll notice I keep calling them sandwiches, as it's to my knowledge that 'hamburger' or 'burger' is an incorrect label for it. A hamburger or burger is a type of sandwich that consists of patties made out of ground meat (usually beef), and this doesn't have any ground chicken in it. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct and embarass me in the comments, while I'll point fingers at my American friends for misleading me.
Would I recommend you to fly here just to try this out? Hell no, MacDonalds isn't some exotic paradise; you could be traveling to try out local cuisine, amongst other things. Nevetherless, if for some reason you are in another country, stop by their local fast food chains and see what kind of whacky creations they have.
Take for example, Japan's Burger King Black Burger, also with black cheese oddly enough.
How about the McLobster from MacDonald's Canadian cousin?
Alright that's enough of fast food for one day, I can't stand looking at any more of this right now. Oh wait, I just realized I'm eating KFC for dinner as well. Someone please kill me.
