McWendy King's

It's surprising to us how often people will comment on the fact that we do this little burger blog. We don't have very many readers but that was never our intention. We do find a couple of things odd, though. One is where our audience comes from. For example, this past week we have gotten almost as many hits from Russia as from the USA. (Hey, if you live in Russian, or anywhere for that matter, drop us a line and say hi at turnerbudds@yahoo.com).

The other thing that surprises us is how often people will defend their favorite burgers. We have taken a bunch of heat for our lukewarm review of Carvers. We're sorry, the burgers we got just weren't that good.

Now we honestly don't really pan many places. Let's be honest, if you use decent ingredients it's pretty difficult to mess up a burger. Remember, we don't go after the exotic burgers on the menu just the basic number with meat, cheese and our choice of condiments and garden.

Perhaps the biggest surprise to us is how often we've had people tell us that they actually like a fast food burger from one of the Big Three. Nothing wrong with that. We've both eaten our share of McWendy King products. Josh, being a college student, still does. Mark, on the other hand, prefers real food.

But, to be fair and being prompted by some "new" claims about certain burgers, we decided to suffer the public humiliation and rank the Big Three in order of our preference. We tested each restaurant's standard burger. At McDonald's it was the Quarter Pounder, at Wendy's it was the Double, and at Burger King it was the Whopper. Of course we ordered fries with each and are rating those as well.

Burgers

We both agreed that Burger King had the best of the three burgers. "At least they pretend to cook it over a real flame," is how Josh summed it up. Yes, they send the meat through their flame broiling conveyor belt like something out of a 1920's German movie and then let it sit around until it is time to pop it in the microwave to heat up for a customer. Still, the flavor of the actual flame (and we've read that the flavor is added to the meat prior to cooking) makes the Whopper the best tasting burger.

For the second place burger we differed. Mark preferred Wendy's offering as the meat tasted fresher and it seemed as though the burger wasn't actually sitting around for very long. Josh admitted to being a fan of the Quarter Pounder, liking the consistency and the flavor. For Mark the consistency of the Quarter Pounder is a bit strange. It doesn't seem like real meat and that, for him, was a problem.

Fries

This was a no brainer. Number one is without a doubt McDonald's. They absolutely know how to make a French fry. Because everything at every McDonald's is consistent you are sure to get crispy fries that actually taste like potatoes.

Second best went to Wendy's. These are you basic fries with nothing special about them. They are cooked right but are just like every other frozen food service fry in the world.

The worst fries come from Burger King. Though the fries are better than they were before their recent change, they are still coated and seasoned in such a way that gives them the consistency of cardboard and makes than almost uneatable. 

That's our opinion. Do your own three way taste test and decide which, if any, of these places you want to head to for a fast food lunch.