Monday, February 23, 2009

Burger King Burger Shots (A guest post from down Texas way)

One day my friend Matt, resident of Austin, Texas and finalist in the High School Lunch Memories Contest, sent me an "instant message" to tell me that he was surprised that I had not yet reviewed Burger King's Burger Shots. I replied that I was also surprised and I thought that he would also be a good man for the job. He agreed, so here you have it. By the way, this is Matt:


Living about a block away from a Burger King, and being without cable television, I first learned about BK Burgershots from the illustrious block letter marquee fixed underneath the Burger King sign. I initially envisioned some horrid burger-in-a-cup scenario; online research revealed these burgershots to be the far tamer threat of bite-size burgers. Burger King is no stranger to questionable names: witness the Angry Whopper or Croissan'wich. An infrequent fast-food consumer, I am nonetheless drawn in by all things gimmicky, and I knew I needed some of these tiny sandwiches.


Little Lady Laura and I stopped in for lunch today. I ordered a six-pack of burgershots and a four piece chicken tender, she ordered a whopper. We both got fittingly tiny plastic cups for water. The flat panel television was playing Disney's High School Musical, keeping up the theme of digestable, disposable flash-in-the-pan pop garbage. But here, I'm being too hard on the little guys.


They were perfectly adequate miniature representations of the standard BK burger: meat, cheese, two pickles, ketchup and mustard. The patties featured the ubiquitous grill-marks (I think Burger King would put char marks on the soda, if they could), belying the microwave prep I see every time I order here. One disturbing fact: the burgers are connected, joined at the patty, and the box encourages a "tear-and-share" method of dispersal, as if you and and a friend were only really hungry enough for 1 oz of meat a piece.


The box/product appeared to be sponsored by Heinz Ketchup, apparently "the only ketchup fit for a king". The paragraph on the other side of the box stated that these mini burgers were "designed to move", though I'm not sure how much more handy or aerodynamic they are than a regular hamburger, especially with their siamese-twin attachment. As a comparison, I snuck a few bites of the Little Lady's Whopper while she was in the restroom, and the cornocupia of veggies, sauces, and more substantial meat beat the pants off the burgershots. They were never intended for this sort of competition, though, and for what they are they elicited a not-condescending "meh" from both the Lady and myself.

Again, perfectly adequate carbon copies of the standard hamburger. Not really enough of a taste sensation for me to order again, though I am keen to try the breakfast shots. What can I say? I'm a sucker for tiny hamburgers. One final note: these are not sliders. Sliders sometimes have greasier buns and "special" sauce, but they always have grilled onions, which were sadly missing from the burgershots. This is what separates them from White Castle or the immortal Bates Hamburgers of greater Wayne and Livonia.


Digg!

2 comments:

Amber said...

Are these at all similar in taste to what was once referred to as a burger buddy?

Anonymous said...

Isn't Burger Shot the name of the fast food burger joints in Grand Theft Auto IV?