When will fast food restaurants stop dumping lots of BBQ sauce on everything and calling it BBQ? Just because you dump a so called BBQ sauce on some form of meat, does not make it BBQ. Last week Burger King announced and released its new summer menu featuring a Memphis Pulled Pork Sandwich. I was wondering how the product you got in the store compared to the food art they sold on television commercials. The website GrubGrade was brave enough to sample this item and review it. I have used a couple of photos from their review to compare how the food are product differs from what you get in the restaurant.
If you look at the pulled pork sandwich in the back left of the photo you see a nice size pile of chunky pulled pork covered in a rich, red BBQ sauce. It looks pretty appetizing I must admit. Is this what you expect to get when you walk into your local Burger King establishment? Very seldom does any food bought at a fast food restaurant even come close to looking like what they have in the advertisement photos.
This is what GrubGrade found when they dined at a local Burger King. The pork is not chunky it is more like shredded. GrubGrade compared it to the pulled pork in the tubs that you find in the meat department at your local grocery store. It appears that the sauce is just squeezed on at the end and it is not soaked in it as in the advertisement. This may be a plus or minus for you. The really disturbing ingredient is this substance called coleslaw mayonnaise. What the heck is that? Is it artificially coleslaw flavored mayonnaise or a coleslaw smoothie? Come on Burger King! Would it kill you to put actual coleslaw on the sandwich? This sandwich looks like a train wreck. It is not something I would want to eat. If I lived in Memphis I would not want to be associated with this sandwich.
Call me a BBQ snob if you want, but BBQ to me must be slow cooked, with wood smoke (not smoke flavor) over a long period of time. I do not want my BBQ made in the time it takes me drive from the ordering speaker to the pick up window. I am going to add this to my bucket list of things I will never eat before I kick the bucket. I will place it right next to the McRib.
Pretty nice post, Ernie, and I see where you are coming from.
One of my favorite sites compares all the fast food offerings with their advertised photos versus what you really get: http://www.thewvsr.com/adsvsreality.htm
I understand you credited the GrubGrade site with the photos here, but I would have liked to see YOUR actual photos of the sandwich you received.
As for the coleslaw mayo… now I’m going to have to go order one myself. Thanks. Sigh. LOL.
Brian,
Thanks for the kind words. I probably should have plinked down my $4 and taken my own pics. I was pushing to get it out before I left for boy scout camp. I would never eat it though.