McDonald's Tasting Spree

Ebi or shrimp burger with pineapple in it at McDonald's is very bland

My general rule is to only eat McDonald's once a year -- after I finish the Standard Chartered Marathon 10K race as an excuse to refuel on calories, and it's open early.

However the other day I broke that rule when a friend visiting from the United States was on a mission to try some McDonald's food that you can't find there and I agreed to help try some of it. Why not in the name of research?

Pass on the mango drink with cheese on top

At the giant tablet where you can order food without a human, he was all excited to try several items and luckily we got there just before the lunchtime rush to secure a table too.

After about 10 minutes the food arrived in boxes and wrapped in paper, though the regular waffle fries -- called "potato grids" were already decent on their own. But when we added the extra seasoning of sesame oil flavour, and shook them in a paper bag together, the waffle fries -- oh I mean the potato grids -- were coated in a powder that made it hard to consume, and only when combined with my saliva did I detect the sesame oil taste that was completely redundant.

In terms of burgers we tried the ebi or shrimp burger with pineapple. Intriguing, right? Wrong. There was absolutely no taste in this deep-fried shrimp patty with a piece of lettuce, mayonnaise and canned pineapple. Why would anyone want to eat this?

We also tried the cowboy Angus -- a 130g thick cut Angus patty with a deep-fried onion ring, Cheddar cheese and Emmenthal cheese and shredded lettuce. You need a really big mouth to fit all that in, but it was a burger masquerading to be something fancy, but in reality it was hardly impressive. There was too much going on that the flavours cancelled themselves out.

Definitely go for the deep-fried chicken wings!

McDonald's is trying to catch up with the bubble tea craze minus the boba or black pearls and offering cheese toppings -- sourced from Europe and New Zealand -- on different flavoured drinks, like soy milk matcha tea, salted caramel latte, and long black. My friend ordered a mango one and it arrived with a thick white foam on top with an artful design of hearts in mango sauce.

But alas, I can only say the same refrain -- no taste! As we were drinking this without a straw, it took several gulps to even get to the mango part, and even then there was no mango taste! It's so visually misleading.

However our visit to the fast-food joint was redeemed by the chicken wings, deep-fried of course. Luckily we could order two pieces, one drumstick and one winglet. The outside was crispy, and surprisingly moist inside.

So I'm definitely done with McDonald's for the rest of the year. The lesson learned is to stick to the classics -- but maybe with a chicken wing on the side.

Impossible Chilli Cheese Fries

Looks yum, right? The "ground meat" is plant protein by Impossible Foods

My colleagues and I were in Central around lunchtime and following our appointment we had a late lunch at Beef and Liberty in Lan Kwai Fong.

On the menu were the usual burgers, along with one vegetarian featuring a patty made from beetroot, brown rice and kidney beans. There was also the Impossible Thai burger -- using a plant-based protein made to look like beef.

Three of the four of us had beef burgers, while one went vegetarian and had not only the beetroot burger, but also the Impossible chilli cheese fries. It features the "meat" broken up and combined with kidney beans, Cheddar cheese, spring onions and sour cream.

If you were given two plates of this dish, one featuring real beef and the other the Impossible beef, it would be very hard to identify which was which, not only in terms of appearance but also taste.

When it's mixed in a flavourful sauce (and melted Cheddar helps too!) then the Impossible chilli cheese fries were just as good as real ground beef. But why eat meat if you don't have to or want to?

Price-wise the real beef and Impossible version are the same price at HK$62. It's really a no brainer.

More and more hotels and restaurants in Hong Kong are embracing not only Impossible Foods' products, but also Beyond Meat, another "beef" protein substitute, and also Omnipork, that is supposed to mimic minced pork that can be steamed, stir-fried, deep-fried and wrapped in dumplings.

It's great to see these establishments trying out these new products -- apparently people in Hong Kong eat more than three times the daily recommended amount of meat, the equivalent of two 10oz steaks per person.

This is hardly unsustainable nor healthy. With alternative "meat" products on the market, we really need to try them out and even if it's one day a week or even one meal per day, it's better than nothing.