"fuddruckers" news and stories

It's a tragicomic lament that hovers like a cartoon thought-bubble over the heads of many fast-food burger eaters these days: Why, oh why, does the Big Mac in my hand look almost nothing like the one pictured in the McDonald's ad?

If any conclusion can be drawn from a new Consumer Reports survey, it may be that customers are getting fed up with chains that tantalize with mouth-watering pictures of plump, juicy burgers perfectly trimmed with all the fixings only to deliver a pallid simulacrum in reality -- sad, gray little patties topped with a loveless smear of ketchup and sandwiched between two tasteless buns.

Because when you look at who fared worst in the survey of more than 28,000 Consumer Reports subscribers on their fast-food burger preferences, they seem to have one thing in common (other than, apparently, terrible burgers): outsized advertising budgets.

Consumer Reports asked participants to rate the burgers at 18 different chains on a classic 1-to-10 scale. With a miserable average score of 6.3, Burger King and Jack in the Box both tied, vying for second-to-last place. (Maybe that's a sign that Jack in the Box needs to pick a "CEO"/spokesman that doesn't have an oversized ping-pong ball for a head.)

Hark, eager carnivores! As promised, Fuddruckers has unveiled the second in its line of exotic burgers, so channel your inner wolf and get ready to bag some elk (cooked to medium and topped with Swiss cheese and grilled onions, of course).

The self-proclaimed home of the "World's Greatest Hamburgers" introduced its "Fudds Exotics" burgers in May. While the burgers are certainly exotic when compared to the competition, they probably wouldn't be anything that Dr. Livingstone would write home about. Don't expect charbroiled wildebeest to pop up on the menu any time soon.

The half-pound elk burger joins Fuddruckers' half-pound bison burger as the second gamey "exotic" that's available now. The chain will add a half-pound wild boar burger in September, and -- just in time to give another bird a run for its money -- look for a 7-oz. ostrich burger to arrive before Thanksgiving.

If you don't mind embellishing your Facebook profile, Fuddruckers is offering you a chance to win a $50 gift certificate to try all their exotic offerings if you put a "Fudds Exotics" icon on your profile page.

Ever had a hankering to order up a 78.5-pound hamburger with 12 hours notice? Now you can thanks to Bob's BBQ & Grill. This Texas 'cue joint recently cooked up what it calls the Texas Belt buster in a bid to unseat Fuddruckers Guinness World record for the largest burger.

Bob's grilled the gargantuan ground beef sandwich in honor of the King of Thailand's 60th year accession to the throne. And just why is a Texas BBQ celebrating a Thai holiday? Because the restaurant is located in Pattaya, Thailand. It was founded by Bob Schindler, a former comepetive barbecuer from Houston.

Once it gets certified, the Texas Belt Buster will hold the record. Fuddrucker's burger weighed in at a paltry 29.9 pounds. The Texas Belt Buster used 55 pounds of ground beef and took more than six hours to grill up. It comes topped with two large heads of lettuce, 35 slices of cheese and four jalapeños, among other things.

For a mere 15,500 baht ($400) you can try to take down this monstrosity. I wonder if Takeru Kobayashi has heard of this megaburger yet.

Though there has been some debate in the past about who makes the world's biggest burger, the Guinness Book of World's Records officiated at the weigh-in of a 29.5-pound burger at the Foxwoods Resort Casino's Fuddruckers restaurant. They granted the 18.5-in. wide by 8-in. tall burger the title of "world's largest commercially available burger." It costs $250 and must be ordered 48 hours in advance.

There is one burger that is said to be larger: the Mount Olympus burger at the Clinton Station Diner, in New Jersey.  According to the diner, it weighs 50 pounds. A look at what goes into it reveals why it is not classified as the world's largest burger - Guinness officiation or not: it only has 25 pounds of beef in it. Twenty-five pounds of toppings on a bun, even with meat, makes a salad and not a burger. The Fuddruckers burger, by contrast, started with 33 pounds of beef and, while it did cook down to about 25 pounds, there were only 4.5 pounds of toppings on the final product, making it meatier than the Olympus and more title-worthy.

[via Supersized Meals, images Norwich Bulletin]

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