Around this time last year we brought you images of McDonald's Black and White Burgers—two small "half burgers" that come in a tiny box. Originally a limited one-time deal (like so many of McDonald's China's usual offerings), these tiny round bi-colored sandwiches of weird meat, flavourings, sauce and veggies are back again.
The verdict on these burgers hasn't been exactly black or white. When the burgers first debuted last year, Beijing Cream's Anthony Tao said he hated them. Beijing's own city guide website, the Beijinger, on the other hand gave the burgers a pass. Now, it's my turn to finally chomp down on the weird black and white atrocities to all that is good and holy.
Let's start with the black burger. The black burger is some weird type of pork "burger". It tastes really really cheap like they added more bread crumbs (or sawdust) as filler in place of meat. Not to mention the ridiculously small helping that the "burger" comes in.
The burger patty itself is about the size of a GameCube disc in diameter and the thickness of an open 3DS box. It doesn't help that the burger is covered in some unknown "special sauce". I say special sauce because the sauce is yellow like Big Mac sauce, and it has the tangy mayo-y flavor of special sauce, except it's thicker... The original black burger had a black pepper sauce, and it looks they've replaced it this time around. They've also added lettuce.
The white burger on the other hand isn't exactly a burger. I don't believe in calling a chicken sandwich a burger. It's not. It is a chicken sandwich. I'm okay with pork as a burger. The white "burger" is exactly like the black burger except that it's a chicken sandwich and not a burger.
It has the same mix of onion and lettuce as veggies as well as the overpowering yellow sauce. The biggest issue with the chicken sandwich is that the chicken is much smaller than the bun, which creates an issue with the meat to bun ratio. Too much bun. It's an issue with the black burger too because the buns are too "thick," but the pork burger gets away with it because the disc of pork reaches the edges of the bun.
Truth be told, these burgers aren't half bad. If you scrape off the sauce they're actually bearable. These burgers are limited time items and they'll be gone in a few weeks, fading into oblivion. At least it might inspire McDonald's China to bring back other limited items, like hot cakes and curly fries to their menu.
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Eric is Beijing based writer and all around FAT man. You can contact him @FatAsianTechie@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @FatAsianTechie.