Answering The Important Questions

So how is the "Big Arch" anyway?

So I’m not much of a food-blogger, but I have been known to post the occasional recipe, and I have engaged in famous stabs at ketchup-blogging, and even the occasional McDonald’s sandwich review.

And given the weirdly compelling/annoying McDonald’s CEO video, there’s been a lot of talk about the Big Arch, McDonald’s latest and biggest burger, topping out at 1020 calories. (More if you request extra sauce, as I did. But was that a mistake? Stay tuned!)

The fast food sector isn’t doing great, and burgers are seen by many as passé. McDonald’s, of course, has been around for a long time so there’s not much excitement there. (Even Ronald McDonald has suffered from the several-decades trend toward considering clowns creepy rather than friendly and funny; the Ronald McDonald House chain is wonderful for folks with sick kids, and I donate to it sometimes, but the ghost of John Wayne Gacy, or something, has polluted the entire clown space).

Anyway, this all means that if you’re McDonald’s you need something to get attention: A “halo product” if you will. Just as Ford makes the GT, or Chevy the Corvette (I know, not quite the same) McDonald’s has the Big Arch. Like the Corvettte — or the GT! - the Big Arch is pricey, though as a burger it’s not beyond the pocketbooks of their customers the way halo cars are. But it is bigger and fancier and more attention-getting (and more calorific!) than their other offerings. And it’s a classic McDonald’s product, not some foofy add-on. But is it better?

My verdict after eating one for lunch — not just a bite — is that it is. It’s a good burger. A cynic could say that it’s just a rebadged double quarter-pounder, and in fact it’s built on essentially the same chassis: Two 1/4 pound beef patties on a bun. However, it brings a lot more flavor to the table. McDonald’s doesn’t season its meat much, and I’ve found the double quarter pounder a bit mushy and flavorless. There’s a lot of meat, but my reaction is kind of “so what?”

Not so with the Big Arch. The meat is, as far as I know, the same — and McDonald’s beef is actually decent quality — but they’ve jazzed it up with fried onions and an Arch Sauce which is a little bit tangier and less sweet than the Big Mac Sauce. The cheese seems better, too.

I got mine from a local store that tends to serve its burgers, even the Big Mac, a little dry, so I ordered extra sauce. This was a mistake, I think, as it made the burger hard to eat; it really could have used a toothpick to hold it together against all that lubrication. However, it tasted quite good: Meaty, juicy, and flavorful. I call it a win.

Of course it should be good. It was $8.89 with tax for the burger alone, not including fries or a drink. (And at 1020 calories, I wasn’t going to add fries. For reference, 1020 calories is nearly twice what a Big Mac contains. Some people might want to split a Big Arch.) For what it would have cost to add fries and a drink, I could have had a sit-down burger at Applebee’s or other similar places, though I suppose if you split one it would be competitive.

But is it good? Yeah, it’s good. And it’s big. And going big, and classic, and good, is maybe the way to go in the Trump era. Make burgers great again!