I am literally going to die.
I'm done. I'm dying, my insides are decomposing, and I'm going to die. And I feel so clean.
I'm on a juice fast. It's the worst. I mean, I feel great, slightly delirious, and I fall asleep at stop lights, but I can already feel my stomach aching for a burger. Obviously, with my couture food tasting lifestyle, it's difficult to maintain such a diet while still sticking my mouth in the latest and greatest delicacies from Chez Mac Do and Wendy's. I enlisted the Bedfellow to help me eat this burger while I watched her, on the floor, from across the room, while I cried silently into my sweet green and lemon water.
The new Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger features some new ingredients and some old ones- bacon, cheese, onions, lettuce, tomato, and smoky mustard sauce (from the flatbreads, I imagine) along with Cheddar cheese sauce atop a pretzel bun. Pretty intense, and at $4.89, pricier than the standard bacon burgers but hopefully worth the price. It's a fairly weighty sandwich, and very visually appealing, with lots of sauce, veggies, and a shiny, toasted bun.
The Bedfellow liked it, though found the pretzel, which I'd consider to be the main draw of the sandwich, bland and not very tasty. It wasn't sweet like some pretzel rolls, and had no salt on top. I would have found the inclusion of rock salt fairly audacious given the assault of savory ingredients already inside the burger, but was pleased to hear that she thought the rest of the salt balanced out the boring flavor of the bun. Though if you're going to make a pretzel bun, why bother making it at all if it isn't going to taste very good?
Luckily, it didn't overwhelm the rest of the burger, which was satisfying in its composition. Although she found the cheese and mustard sauce difficult to tell apart, she liked the sweet and smoky flavors, which leads me to wonder if Wendy's has adjusted their mustard sauce recipe after testing it in March. The arugula blend was a nice touch, too, and gave a splash of color alongside the relatively anemic-looking tomato and yellow and brown color palate of the meat and cheese. Red onions balanced out the richer flavors. The cheese provided another good boost of salt and softness atop the burger, but was overwhelmed by the thicker, gooier cheese sauce. Unfortunately, with the success of the toppings, the burger itself was dry.
When 50% of the components- pretzel and burger, are outshone by traditionally secondary items within the composition of a sandwich, cheese and bacon, it seems that it would not prove to be successful. However, it was saved by the quality and abundance of the remaining toppings. The Bedfellow said she would certainly get it again given the chance. I'd be curious to know who is supplying the pretzel buns for Wendy's, or whether they are recipes from another company, tweaked to taste as they do. If this is a permanent addition to the menu, I would hope they add a little more of that eggy, saline flavor so quintessential to pretzels themselves.
Labels: 7, burger, fast food, sandwich
