"cheeseburgers" news and stories

Saturday was the 13th day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, so I decided to celebrate by visiting a Malaysian burger shack. And I didn't need to hop on a plane to do it either. Thanks to Dave Cook of Eating in Translation I learned of Bazaar Ramadhan just hours before the event kicked off. It was held in the Banquet Hall of the Permanent Mission of Malaysia to the United Nations. There was all manner of Malaysian home cooking on offer, including several varieties of the famous rice dish, nasi lemak. In addition to the traditional accompaniments of salty dried fish, peanuts, cucumber and hard-boiled egg I got some sambal sotong, a dark black mess of squid that had been cooked in the pungent Malaysian paste, sambal. It was good, but as you've no doubt guessed by now the food that excited me most was Malaysian hamburgers.

I first heard of Malaysian hamburgers from my friend Zak Pelaccio whose restaurant Fatty Crab slings some wonderfully juicy and well-spiced Malaysian-inflected sliders. He'd always told me they were inspired by the Ramly Burger, a traditional Malaysian street food. Until I saw this video detailing the construction of "The Sloppiest Burger in Malaysia," I had no idea what a Ramly Burger was. Apparently it involves grilling an egg in a pool of margarine dropping a slice of cheese on top of the egg and enfolding a patty inside.

When I approached the cheerful group of kids working the Burger Shack stall my heart skipped a beat as I saw copious amounts of margarine being spread on to whole-wheat buns that were being griddled alongside beef patties and eggs in ring molds. "Ramly burger?," I asked. There was no response but the kid in the blue shirt kept calling out, "Get your genuine Malaysian fast food right here."

Of course, a lot of people would say "just avoid fast food altogether!" But sometimes you just need a Wendy's double cheeseburger and fries.

The folks over at A Calorie Counter have looked at the nutritional info for all of the fast food outlets (McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, A&W, Arby's, Hardee's, In-N-Out Burger, Jack in the Box, Little Caesars, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Sonic, Subway, Taco Bell, Wendy's, White Castle, Popeyes, Del Taco, Carl's Jr., and Dairy Queen) and have compiled a list of the 88 worst foods you can buy, in terms of the amount of trans fats. After the jump, the 10 worst. The link above gives you the whole list.

Before there was Supersize Me, before Eric Schlosser penned Fast Food Nation, Matt Malmgren was busy acquiring Big Macs for his Burger Museum. According to a video that has spread like wildfire throughout the blogosphere, Malmgren purchased two McDonald's hamburgers on Jan. 1, 1989. He ate one and placed the other in his jacket pocket and forgot about it. A year later the video tells us in large red text "It looked and smelled EXACTLY the same!"

Since nobody believed him, gasp, he proceeded to amass more burgers and now has the world's largest, and probably the only, collection of
Immortal Big Macs, double cheeseburgers and hamburgers. As an ominous soundtrack plays, the video lists the "secret ingredients" that make such immortality possible. Among them are 1,1,1-trichloroethane, chloroform, ethyl benzene, styrene and toluene. In the interest of full disclosure, it also notes that the ingredients were taken from the FDA's report on pesticide residues in fast food. The Web site that hosts the video even has directions on how to make your own Immortal Hamburger. It bears pointing out the Web site, Best Day Ever, is a promotional vehicle for a raw foods guru. [via Neatorama]

Source

Have you ever eaten in a restaurant or bought a food product at the store and said to yourself, "heck, I can make something better than this!"? Well, then this contest is for you.

Wendy's is looking for someone to design a new burger for them. You get to choose from a variety of various toppings, cheeses, and sauces. I have to admit that pepperoni on a burger sounds quite good, though I don't know if I'd go with sauerkraut. The winner gets $25,000 and they might add your creation to the regular menu in 2008. Runners up get free burgers for a year! (Wendy's are my favorite fast food burger, I should enter.)

The site says "may we suggest you start your burger the way we start all Wendy's burgers - with a fresh, never frozen, beef patty." What, did we have another option? Heh.

I was really planning to try that KFC Famous Bowl, but not after seeing these pics.

It's a funny experiment from The West Virginia Surf Report. They take several ads from fast food companies such as McDonald's, KFC, Arby's, Subway, Burger King, and Wendy's and compare the pics to the actual food they went and bought. The results are, while not exactly surprising, certainly interesting.

Most of the foods look really smushed and look like they were put together very quickly. But back to that KFC Famous Bowl. In the ad you can see all the individual items in there, the chicken, the cheese, the corn, the gravy. The actual product (above) looks like dog food sold on the planet Krypton. Gah!