Is The Viral McDonald's McOcean Burger The Real Deal?

There's a viral unboxing video floating around on the internet depicting someone trying a mysterious new sandwich from McDonald's called the McOcean burger. The video, posted to TikTok by user @maligoshik on June 22, has racked up over 4.1 million views at the time of writing. 

@maligoshik

have you tried it yet?

♬ original sound – anna malygon

In the video, the user, sitting in a car, shows what appears to be a McDonald's box labeled "McOcean," and displays it to the camera. But what's got everyone really intrigued is the contents of the box. The sandwich contained therein appears to be composed of some really unusual ingredients: a Filet-O-Fish patty topped with three small octopuses, a couple of mini shrimp, and tartar sauce. The user takes a messy bite of it, says "I like it," and waves goodbye to the camera.

Considering its unusual toppings (mainly the octopus), we were curious to see just where this sandwich was offered (and let's be honest, we wanted to know if we could get ahold of it ourselves). But after some pretty in-depth sleuthing, we strongly suspect that the McOcean burger is nothing more than an internet hoax. 

Users in the comments section also wanted to know where @maligoshik had procured this McDonald's sandwich from, saying things such as, "Where is the mcocean burger at" and "i cant find ANYTHING on this sandwich besides this video."

After reviewing @maligoshik's other videos, it appears as if they're based in Ukraine. So I examined the Ukrainian McDonald's menu, where I found no evidence of this sandwich. The Filet-O-Fish is offered, but there are no variants on it, nor are octopus or shrimp on the menu. Shrimp isn't unheard of at McDonald's; it's on the menu in other countries such as Japan, where it's in a sandwich called the Ebi Filet-O, which we tried earlier this year at the McDonald's Global Menu Restaurant here in Chicago.

I reached out to a former coworker of mine (and popular TikTok personality) chef Mike Haracz, who's McDonald's former corporate chef, for some insight. He's helped us understand the inner machinations of McDonald's in the past, and once he reviewed the video, he messaged me and said he believed the sandwich to be fake. 

There's one key detail he noticed: "Normally all of the sauce would be on the crown of the bun, but it looks like the Filet-O-Fish was opened, the octopus and shrimp were added, then closed again, as there is sauce under the octopus and not much on top." If you watch the video closely, Haracz is correct: The sauce is both beneath the octopus and on top of it.

As much as I want this thing to be real, the box in that video's likely fake, and the sandwich has probably been adulterated, all for internet clout. Sorry everyone, I hate to break it to you, but you probably won't be eating octopus at McDonald's anytime soon.