A taste test to crown the chain breakfast sandwich champion
Welcome to American Sandwiches Week, a celebration of the mighty sandwich through the lens of Americana.
Fast Food
C+
McDonald’s new baked apple pie may be healthier, but it's not improved
Many of us have had McDonald’s Apple Pie at one point or another. They were a popular item in my family on road trips.…
B+
Reappraising McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese, an under-appreciated chain burger
Crapping on McDonald’s is a communal sport. The laws of popularity state anything with mainstream appeal must trigger a…
What booze tastes best in a Wendy's Frosty?
Wendy’s Frosty is so much more than just a French fry’s best dipping liquid; it’s one of fast food’s most recognizable…
Eating my way through the United Nations of McDonald’s
McDonald’s is continually trying to up its game: The recent switch from frozen to fresh burgers (some of its burgers…
A-
Dairy Queen's Jurassic Chomp Blizzard is a giant cup of candy garnished with ice cream
Dairy Queen’s latest Blizzard concoction, a marketing tie-in to the latest Jurassic World franchise, is essentially a…
B
Starbucks decides foam is a dish best served cold
“Whaddya mean there’s no ice? You mean I gotta drink this coffee hot?!” So goes one of the customers from the “stupid…
C+
Love/hate Burger King? You'll love/hate the Sourdough King
My superpower is I can walk into any fast food restaurant blindfolded and identify it by smell. McDonald’s smells like…
B
White Castle's Impossible Slider cleverly disguises its fake meat subterfuge
It was true before Harold & Kumar, but the 2004 surprise-hit film confirmed what many of us know: White Castle is…
B
KFC's Smoky Mountain BBQ chicken continues the hot streak for fast food fried chicken
It’s been a banner few years for fast food fried chicken (Burger King’s chicken fries being the dreadful aberration). Ra…
B+
With Taco Bell's Strawberry Skittles Freeze, you may actually taste the rainbow
Taco Bell is selling a Slurpee-like frozen drink that tastes like red Skittles. If that first sentence did not evoke…
The Takeout's exhaustive guide to fast food sauces
Let’s spend a few minutes on the crucial topic of sauce. My biggest question is: Do we treat sauce as a vehicle, an…
Dunkin’ Donuts’ Girl Scout-cookie coffees are an unholy alliance of two great things
Unlike your Starbucks specialty drinks with froths of whipped cream and differently themed sprinkles, Dunkin’ Donuts’…
B
McDonald's Szechuan Sauce is America encapsulated in nugget-dipping form
Martin Yan. Cecilia Chang. The fortune cookie. Panda Express’ Orange Chicken. All incontrovertibly shaped America’s…
A
Raising Cane's serves a more-than-able chicken finger
I’d never heard of Raising Cane’s until I visited my girlfriend out in Las Vegas, where she lived at the time. She…
All of Dairy Queen’s Blizzards, ranked
When Dairy Queen introduced the Blizzard in 1985, it was a big step forward in ice cream shop innovation. Before, you…
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A&W debuts poutine not with a squeak, but a whimper
It’s a wonder to me that more fast-food restaurants don’t serve poutine. The vast majority already have fries, and a…
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Panda Express' orange chicken remains the pinnacle of junky Chinese-American takeout
The closest I ever came to being a racist was over orange chicken. My Hong Kong immigrant parents never expressed their…
B+
With Nacho Fries, Taco Bell enters—and dominates—the French fry game
Loyalties to fast food French fries run deep. But for all the love they garner, few fast food chains have made attempts…
Which chain has the best to-go coffee? (2018 edition)
Like any workplace, our office is fueled each morning by cups containing America’s most popular drug: caffeine. Coffee…