McDonald’s My Burger The Ultimate Supreme
Review of McDonald’s My Burger The Ultimate Supreme
Website: http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome/product_nutrition.beef.1313.the-ultimate-supreme.html
What they say:
From the imagination of Dave Wright comes 100% beef, maple-cured bacon, Emmental cheese and ketchup with red onion, shredded iceberg lettuce and a pepper mayo. All in a sesame-topped bun.
Price: £3.89 for the burger only (subject to variation).
Calories: 676 kcal.
Welcome to week three of the McDonald’s My Burger promotion. This week we’ll be taking a look at the latest limited time crowd sourced burger which is called The Ultimate Supreme.
 |
| McDonald’s Promotional Picture… |
Below is a quote from one of the judges, Duncan Cruttenden – Head of Food Development, McDonald’s UK.
If you haven’t seen it the full video is embedded in our My Burger Winners post.
“I guess variety is probably the key cause it’s a rotating food event, so you don’t want everything tasting and looking the same from week to week to week.”
Now we compared the Big Uno to the New York Classic in week one’s review (which is basically a bun swap and minus the mustard) so here we do our comparable table of The Ultimate Supreme vs. The Big Uno.
| The Ultimate Supreme | Big Uno |
|---|---|
| 100% beef patty | 100% beef patty |
| Sesame-topped bun | Sesame-topped bun |
| Maple-cured bacon | Bacon |
| Emmental Cheese | Cheese slices |
| Ketchup | Tomato ketchup |
| Red onion | Red onion |
| Shredded iceberg lettuce | Shredded iceberg lettuce |
| Pepper mayo | Cool mayo |
If you think this is a criticism because I was a My Burger finalist but didn’t make the final five please read our disclaimer from the first Big Uno review in the world.
We’re just here to present the facts. With this comparison out the way how was our experience of The Ultimate Supreme?
OK so we hit the drive-thru pretty early today as we wanted to avoid the midday Maccies marauders, especially during half term!
Now this tactic is a double-edged sword.
You know that the burger is going to be made up fresh and not fall victim to burger slide but on the other hand you have to wait a good 5-10 minutes.
Still, I was happy to be one of the first in the country to sample The Ultimate Supreme and drove off to film the latest episode of Burger Lad® TV which you can see below.
The first thing I noticed today was the smell and I knew that sweet aroma before even lifting the My Burger promotional box.
Like a 1950’s horror B movie the sound “dan-dan-dan” played in my mind as I slowly revealed The Ultimate Supreme… just look at all that ketchup!!
Now I know this is probably the world’s most popular burger sauce, but to me I have never and will never be a fan. And on this build it seemed to be concentrated all in one area instead of evenly spread across.
 |
| A strong smelling, sweet ketchup… |
What I didn’t notice at the time (again today I was in a rush) was that the red onion was missing!!
Yes despite all that time to make this new burger from scratch they’d omitted one of the toppings. Such a shame… although heading through the McDrive didn’t exactly fill me with 100% confidence.
“Welcome to McDonald’s can I take your order please?”
– I’ll have The Ultimate Supreme please.
“Sorry what was that?”
– The Ultimate Supreme… the new My Burger one please.
“That’s the Sweet Chilli Fiesta… oh hang on its Wednesday, it’s changed.”
– Yeah I’ll have The Ultimate Supreme thank you.
 |
| The McDonald’s Ultimate Supreme… |
So how was it exactly?
Well the first taste you get is that sweet, sickly ketchup which had been liberally applied on my order today.
But being a champ I powered through the ordeal (note the Big Uno also had ketchup but nowhere near the levels on offer here).
The next flavour was quite smoky which comes from the bacon (this had a bit of fat on it) and the pepper mayo – I’ll come back to this in a bit.
The patty was pretty dry but I was impressed with the level of seasoning on it and this really shone through during the entire burger.
The Emmental cheese looked good, it was a bit rubbery to the touch and I sampled a bit on its own. No major player in terms of flavour but when eaten with both meat elements it made for a good bacon cheeseburger.
And that’s what this is in effect… a bacon cheeseburger with some additional items.
 |
| Today our build was missing red onion… |
It’s a massive shame I didn’t get to try it with the red onion as intended… but luckily due to our My Burger ranking experiment it will get another chance when my team of unbiased taste testers will get to sample it.
And we’ll be back in our regular secret burger location for that one.
Although I like this restaurant… it was a whole 10p cheaper… so after the 5 weeks have come to an end I would be 50p better off trying all five over here…
Towards the end I did detect a faint onion taste but I can 100% confirm this was not due to any red onion on-board The Ultimate Supreme. I think it was a slight cross contamination with the iceberg lettuce – and there was a lot of it on here!
 |
| Ketchup all on one third of the burger… |
Now when selecting the final five you do have to wonder if McDonald’s consider the purchasing of ingredients when doing this promotion.
After all, they’re not going to want five different lettuces on five different burgers across the period – hence why all five burgers feature iceberg lettuce and for two weeks running there is maple-cured bacon.
I suppose they are going to want to get as many of the same ingredients as possible for the financial gains/wastage issues/economies of scale etc. Just a thought…
I’d like to finish this review talking about the pepper mayo which was excellent.
To me, this was the shining star amongst the other toppings on The Ultimate Supreme.
It was creamy but you also got that peppery taste and when I tried it on its own I really, really liked it. It’s just a bit annoying that I found it was almost “fighting” with the overbearing ketchup instead of complimenting it like it should.
But if the feedback on the Sweet Chilli Fiesta is anything to go by (people saying it is burning their mouth from spice levels) then all people have different tastes.
 |
| A respectable pepper mayo… |
So although I wasn’t a massive fan of The Ultimate Supreme you may be so please leave a comment or tweet us if you disagree.
Did it live up to its name?
In my opinion no, I’d describe this more as the Bacon Cheese Deluxe but then I’m not in any sort of position to make these decisions…
Overall a fairly sub-standard burger and far too similar to the Big Uno except for that commendable pepper mayo.
We’ll be back next week for the McPizza Pepperoni Burger and as ever we’ll be there first on day one to review it.
Burger Lad®
Hi Burger Lad thanks for your review on my hubby’s creation “The Ultimate Supreme”
It does appear that you were not presented with a burger today worthy of the title and if you may recall my hubby did comment on one of your reviews on 10th October and I quote – “I look forward to reading your reviews of the 5 winning burgers and just hope you get presented with burgers equal to the presentation and quality as shown in the promotion images” Obviously you did not which is a shame. However I can confirm that as a family we attended our local McDonalds and Hubby asked the manager specifically for his Ultimate Supreme to be presented exactly it was in the promotional image…….The manager and his staff did not disappoint and we were presented with fantastic burgers that tasted very nice, although we thought our burgers could have done with a bit more mayo and ketchup which was a little sparse and totally the opposite to your example.
On a final note all 5 burgers will appeal to different customers in which some will like The Ultimate Supreme and some will not. If a customer chooses the Ultimate Supreme and was subsequently presented with a burger of the quality I had today they would be truly satisfied on all counts, although I doubt that anyone served the example on your review would quite rightly feel wholly disappointed and robbed!
Such a shame that your review is based on a poorly made burger with ingredients missing or in excess.
Tracy
Shut up Tracy
To "Anon" above – in fairness to Tracy, she's not pretending to be impartial – she admits bias right at the start, so it's fair enough to imagine the whole family really really wants this burger to succeed.
That said, whether or not the build is correct, the ingredients show it's very similar to the Big Uno, which benefits from the advantage of being first. Week 3 is more of a sort of Big Dos.
And to Tracy, with an overblown pretentious name like Ultimate Supreme, even the most accurate build in the world couldn't live up to it.
The fact of the matter is that it is an ordinary burger, nothing special. Weeks 1 and 3 seem to be the safe generic options, while weeks 2 and 4 are the really interesting and unique ones, and week 5 seems to be a case of saving the best for last.
As much as I like the MyBurger promotion, the image of someone going into a branch of McDonalds and telling the manager no less how to make it, is pretty cringeworthy I'm afraid.
Wow, how cringeworthy is this comment? Did you stand behind the people making the burger and point out exactly how it should be made as well?
Forget about the names. How about McDonald’s using there brains and make a burger that 1 in 100 would buy due to dietary need. insted of 1 in 300 wound buy as a fad. You can't compare the uno with the supreme. The uno was changed by McDonald’s and not as it should be, Suitable for coeliacs. To. Enable families to eat out as one unit. Just a shame the press missed the point of the uno
So I got to the drive-thru at Oldbury at 12:30 and promptly ordered one of these, before parking up in my not-so-secret work car park to start the feast. Opening the box, I wasn't presented with a "red mess" like Burger Lad – the top of the bun was picture perfect. Lifting the lid, I had a look under the hood – turns out there wasn't any red at all – no ketchup! In fact there wasn't any cheese either and far too much red onion.
Taking my first bite, all I could taste was onion, with a dry patty and a bit of bacon (which wasn't that greasy compare to the Big Uno). Bite after bite, all I got was this red onion, whilst my mouth was getting drier and drier.
If I was the creator of this burger I'd be pretty f*cked off that people are experiencing situations like this – what is the point of crowd-sourcing a burger if the flippers can't even build to specificaiton??? If that was one of my software engineers, they would find themselves on the wrong side of a P45.
To me, the name Ultimate Supreme wasn't reflective of the burger, even against the original specification (e.g. with Cheese and ketchup)…!
Ranking the three so far:
1 Sweet Chilli Fiesta
2. Big Uno
3. Ultimate Supreme.
Similarly what's the point of reviewing a burger when half its ingredients are missing?
Pointless burger review mate!
Its more of a review at slagging off McDonalds staff for making a poor burger. Why didn't you take it back and ask for a replacement?
I would have taken it back had I had not been sat in my work car park and only had 20 minutes for lunch!
Yes it was a review of the ineptness of McD staff – that was pretty clear.