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Mar 13, 2013

Custom Order: McDonald's Quarter Pounder Mac Style

A McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Big Mac toppings and sauce.

Say you wanted a Big Mac from McDonald's, but preferred that it were meatier and easier to cram in your burger hole. Also, it'd be nice if the middle bun didn't threaten to escape every time you bit into it. With that in mind, I tried to order a Quarter Pounder Mac Style i.e. with Mac sauce and shredded lettuce instead of ketchup and mustard.

A Quarter Pounder goes for $3.29 at my local McDonald's and they charge 30 cents extra for shredded lettuce (bringing the total to $3.59), but here's the difficulty with custom ordering:

A Quarter Pounder typically comes with slivered onions and pickles so when they rang up my Quarter Pounder as "No Mustard, No Ketchup, Add Shred Lettuce, Add Mac Sauce," I figured I'd have onions and pickles, but sadly no.

When you order something that a line employee is not used to making in an industry with low wages and high turnover, sometimes something gets lost in translation between you stating your order and that lovely CRT order screen on the other end. Also, they have to put it together in like 10 seconds.

What I ended up getting was a Quarter Pounder with just cheese, Mac sauce, and oddly enough, hand-leafed lettuce. My guess is whoever was assembling my sandwich, was thinking Angus Third Pounder with Mac Sauce.

McDonald's Quarter Pounder Mac Style cross-section.

So, a bit of an ordering fail for me, but not unexpected. Of course the question is: How did it taste?

The leaf lettuce threw me for a bit of a loop. Pared with the Mac Sauce, if felt like eating a salad and a cheeseburger at the same time, though there were definite traces of Big Mac flavor to be had here.

The Quarter Pounder patty holds up well with some beefy flavor although the cheese isn't as noticeable as in a Big Mac.

The end result is a beefier Big Mac-ish experience mixed with a feeling of eating salad. I didn't miss the pickles, but found myself wanting for onions.

8 comments:

  1. I've never understood why they haven't done a big mac but with quarter pounder patties.

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  2. I think they have, but in Alaska. I heard that it was called the McKinley Burger

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  3. It's called the McKinley Mac up here in Alaska...

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  4. I've never heard of them charging for shredded lettuce but I have been charged $.30 for adding Mac sauce to a Quarter Pounder.

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  5. I custom order fast food all the time and McDonald's is better at it then most. If something is missing, you can go right back to the counter and ask for the ingredients that they missed. If there is a line of customers make sure you talk to the cashier loud enough so that everyone can hear you, so that they know that you are not trying to cut into the line. They will usually throw the missing ingredients on a wrapper and hand it to you. I make it a point to NOT hand the food item that was make incorrectly to the employees because sometimes they will throw it away and make me another; not only is this wasteful but it takes more time. I will even do this if I went through the drive thru if I caught the mistake in time.

    p.s. Even though Burger King still has "Have it your way", they are the absolute worse at custom orders.

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  6. It might vary from location to location, but yeah the Mac sauce substitution for me was no charge.

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  7. Order the daily double, minus mayo add MAC sauce, you'll get a burger with no center bun, that taste like a big mac

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  8. Daily Double has a thick tomato slice, and no pickle or onion. It will taste nothing like a Big Mac

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