i prefer food from local takeaway shops and bakeries to "fast food chain" food.
local takeaway shops make hamburgers and steak sandwiches and fish & chips and spring rolls etc etc and bakeries make meat/chicken pies and sausage rolls all of which i like (if the shops is a good one (there is variability of quality between shops)).
as far as the fast food chains go, my tastes vary from month to month (but they are on a long time cycle that repeats itself perpetually).
1. mcdonalds.
about 20 years ago, i very much liked the taste of quarter pounders with cheese and big macs and filet's of fish, but new health regulations forced mcdonalds to change some ingredients to more "healthy" alternatives.
burger buns : the buns once had a small amount of sugar in them. it did not make them taste sweet, but it allowed for a texture that melted in one's mouth. today, the buns have no sugar content and are slightly drier and (curiously) invoke less production of saliva so that the amount of chews i need to make on a mouthful of burger is greater, and therefore the food spends more time in my mouth giving time for me to really taste the entirity of the flavour of the burger which is inferior for other additional reasons to what it used to be.
meat patties : the old meat patties had a higher content of fat in them. regulatory authorities focused on trans fats, and they had to be eliminated.
the only way to do it was to use lower fat(overall fat) beef because it was not practical to treat the beef to extract only the trans fats (if even possible)). therefore, the whole beef patty became lower fat, and therefore drier. in order to achieve this, they changed to a lower grade meat that was naturally less fatty, and i noticed immediately the difference in taste and texture. considering that the salt content of the beef patty was not reduced, then because i need to chew for longer (due to both the bun and the beef), the concentration of salt builds up in the mouth and it tastes too salty and dry.
20 years ago, when i took a bite of a quarter pounder, i chewed maybe once (if i was hungry) before it just slid down my throat, and the saltiness was a fleeting sensation in transit and was not in any way dominant (with respect to taste). now, i can be voracious and drool for a quarter pounder and when i take my first bite i am immediately disappointed.
the sauce on the big mac used to taste more mellow like mayonnaise, but they have since made it more like tartare sauce which i do not find palatable.
2: hungry jacks (burger king)
i sometimes have a desire for a double whopper with cheese, but not very often. burger king's hamburgers taste more like they have been reheated in a microwave oven. i prefer mcdonalds.
3: pizza hut makes superior pizza's to domino's in my opinion.
whatever
12 Jan 2014, 1:28 am
