Review of McDonald’s The Grand Burger
Website: http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome/product_nutrition.beef.1412.the-grand.html
What they say:
Prepare yourself for two 100% beef patties and two layers of cheese, topped with Batavia lettuce, red onions and a tomato slice, all finished off with ketchup and cool mayo in a sesame seed bun.
It’s grand all right!
Price: £4.09 for the burger only (subject to variation).
Calories: 713 kcal.
McDonald’s started 2015 with a bang, with the re-release of the highly anticipated McRib and they have followed this up with a brand new burger – The Grand.
In a world exclusive, Burger Lad® revealed that The Grand was heading to the UK imminently.
This latest limited time promotional offering is one of the first in some considerable time to have two patties on. All those people craving a double should be happy.
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| McDonald’s promotional picture… |
There are a number of products available on the market bearing the “Grand” name.
As of writing, Macca’s Australia offers the Grand Angus, Austria has the Grand Royal, Kuwait the Grand Chicken Spicy and The Grand has already been on-sale in Spain, dubbed the Grand McExtrem Original.
It seems that this “range” is an attempt to bridge the perceived gap between the low end price standard burgers and higher priced gourmet options – an idea pitched by your very own Burger Lad® at the My Burger finals.
Switzerland has/had The Prime – part of their “Signature” line and Austria currently has “Natural Fries” – is McD’s going “gourmet” in the face of competition from other burger chains?
The Grand doesn’t have the regular beef patty used on their Cheeseburger, Hamburger or Big Mac, nor does it use the Quarter Pounder patty.
Instead, McDonald’s have developed a new 1/7th of a pound beef patty which places it somewhere between the two in terms of size.
It’s not got anything particularly new or exciting on it and our analysts at BLHQ believe this to be a test to gauge the popularity and demand for doubles.
Spain has got a variation which features bacon and Gouda cheese so if successful maybe we’ll see variations in the future…
Featuring lettuce, fresh tomato, red onion, cheese, mayo and ketchup this is in essence a double Big Uno swapping bacon for tomato.
Personally, I’d rather have bacon ahead of the tomato any day of the week but we’d bet on the switch to keep that calorie count down. Anyway… let’s tell our tale of the latest burger from McDonald’s…
Proclaiming “There’s good, there’s great and then there’s The Grand!” this had better be good… is it a thumbs up or thumbs down from us? And do the new patties and toppings taste grand… or bland…!?
Tuesday evening I was impressed, as McDonald’s shared a new video promoting what would be available the next day (this was followed up by another video on launch day).
They are definitely shifting to pre-promoting their new burgers which we saw with the re-release of the McRib. Needless to say I was starting to get semi-excited…
OK so we hit the drive-thru just after that 10:30-10:40am McTwilight zone and after a fairly respectable wait received my food order.
Inside the paper bag was a brand new promotional box.
It was big, brown and the lettering was embossed on the shiny wooden-effect cardboard. I felt like Patrick Bateman admiring a new business card as my fingers ran ever so slowly over that typeface…
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| Like an emboss… |
Inside I found The Grand, sat there looking quite lazy in the mid-morning sun, almost like a lazy cat by the window not really fussed about what he looks like as he smugly curls up purring contently.
You see if you believe the hype you should expect great things from The Grand. Grand things even… but today this looked like it had been put together pretty shabbily to be honest.
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| First look at The Grand… |
BLTV returned for 2015 and you can see our latest episode below… now in the video I do talk about the patties not being the 1/7th pound they claimed to be.
Silly me… of course the thickness is still going to be the same but because of the sheer size in circumference that is what pushes the weight up beyond the normal Cheeseburger patty.
Maybe it was the excitement or the fact I was in a rush but this little revelation dropped as I drove off afterwards.
Not certain what was going on with the sesame seed topped bun today but from the photos it looks like the box had squashed it.
Talking about the box this almost dwarves a regular Big Mac box in what some might see as an attempt at McD’s copying the BK Whopper.
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| McDonald’s The Grand… |
My first taste was a combination of the fresh red onion, tomato and ketchup. I actually hate ketchup with a passion so fair dues to The Grand I actually ate all of this with a degree of satisfaction.
It’s not the most innovative or amazing burger ever. It’s a combination of classic flavours, in fact it sort of reminded me of the type of burger you’d pick up at a kebab shop.
No attempts at gimmicks, just double meat, double cheese, obligatory salad items and “everyone’s favourites” – ketchup and mayo!
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| This untidy build had plenty of lettuce… |
Hey look I don’t like fresh tomato either but I kept it on there and ate the whole thing.
It was OK, just a safe play and definitely something I will only be trying once.
At a whopping £4.09 for the burger alone this is almost pushing its way into gourmet territory but without the gourmet.
And at 713 calories you can see why this “Double Big Uno” dropped the bacon in favour of tomato as this would have tipped it in excess of the Big Tasty with Bacon – a line they don’t really want to cross…
I’m not slagging this burger off in anyway, nor am I defending it. You only have to read the comments about the McRib or prior to that some of the My Burger items (Sweet Chilli Fiesta springs to mind).
We’re a nation (generally) of bland palettes.
In general, people don’t like to try new stuff and be adventurous, they like the same shit over and over.
The same carvery every Sunday, the same double cheese burger, the same Domino’s pizza minus the olives, the same everything. And this is what McDonald’s, cleverly in my opinion have done with The Grand.
They’ve given YOU people exactly what you want. A double that isn’t spicy, hasn’t got pickles on and is the same, safe option you normally go with… only you think you’re getting something new.
Incredible subliminal marketing from the team at McDonald’s to entice people with the name The Grand, coincidence it rhymes with bland? I don’t think so…
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| Decent taste, sloppy presentation… |
Am I disappointed with The Grand?
Not really… I knew exactly what it was before I ordered it – a double cheeseburger with salad. That’s the perfect definition for this latest limited time offer.
My only gripe was the terrible presentation of it today, and on day one as well when the restaurant and drive-thru were at their quietest…
Overall, if you are a thrill seeker looking for new flavours, new experiences and tastes that will inspire and excite you then The Grand is not for you.
It’s McDonald’s foray into testing the reaction to its double burger in the UK.
I can imagine hordes of people really enjoying this one just as much I can hear the sighs of disappointment from others. That’s the trouble, you just can’t please everyone.
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| They can’t all be Head Office standard… |
The Grand – a classic combination of meat, cheese, salad and sauce.
It neither excites or offends but I’m very glad I was there on day one to sample it and massive thanks again to our secret sauce who kindly revealed this to us. You can read the original news story below…
Personally, if McDonald’s wants to offer a gourmet-style burger I’d love it if we got the USA Bacon Clubhouse Burger.
It could find its way to us as it was recently on-sale at McDonald’s Arabia and is set to be unveiled in France later this month.
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| Lifting the lid… |
The Grand is on-sale at McDonald’s from Wednesday 4th February until Tuesday March 17th 2015.
Burger Lad®
*** THE ORIGINAL NEWS STORY WE EXCLUSIVELY REVEALED IS BELOW ***
The next UK McDonald’s Burger in 2015 is called “The Grand”
We know the next McDonald’s burger coming to the UK in 2015…
WORLD EXCLUSIVE TO BURGER LAD®
Not happy with having the exclusive pre-launch review of the McRib nearly three weeks before it’s general release, Burger Lad® is back to tell you about the next promotional burger coming to McDonald’s UK…
We’d heard a few rumours in the last quarter of 2014 about something being developed in the test kitchen at McDonald’s.
The codename for this burger was “Grand” and when we saw the first Grand McExtrem released in McD’s Spain we even tweeted a cryptic clue for you. And just look at that typeface compared to the one below, we knew then this was the Spanish version!
Heard a rumour McDonald’s are releasing something like this in 2015… 🍔😎 pic.twitter.com/NI31CY0Mfo
— Burger Lad® (@Burger_Lad) November 28, 2014
I won’t divulge when it was but our “secret sauce” confirmed to us that from Wednesday 4th February The Grand would be on-sale from 10:30am and Burger Lad® can exclusively reveal exactly what this new promotional burger will look like.
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| The Grand will be released 04/02/15… |
All those double hunters out there will be satisfied as The Grand features two beef patties alongside two slices of cheese, fresh tomato, lettuce, red onion, ketchup and mayo.
In fact, we also hinted about this on the 12th of January as the Big Uno is very similar except the swap of fresh tomato for bacon and that the new burger is a double.
Heard a rumour that the next McDonald’s promotion will feature a double burger similar to the Big Uno… http://t.co/HOy6DM3jzH
— Burger Lad® (@Burger_Lad) January 12, 2015
McDonald’s Austria recently released the Grand Royal and Grand Royal Double Bacon Cheese so we knew the UK version was imminent especially with the McRib ending.
Shown below is our tweet on 23rd January hinting we knew what was coming with a release date of Wednesday 4th February 2015 now confirmed.
The Grand Royal NEW at McDonald’s Austria and our tip for next McD’s UK release… 🍔😎 pic.twitter.com/hMH03q4UI0
— Burger Lad® (@Burger_Lad) January 23, 2015
The current Grand McExtrem Original on the Spanish website is in fact a carbon copy of what is coming to us in ten days… pictured below (on the left) alongside the Bacon variant which has Gouda cheese, bacon and bacon sauce. So if successful maybe we will see future variations…?
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| Already available in Spain… |
You can guarantee we’ll be there on day one of the release of The Grand even if we’re not massive fans of fresh tomato, ketchup and mayo – hey it’s a dirty job but someone has to give you the first look at burgers on the High Street.
We’d also just like to add our massive thanks to our “secret sauce” for divulging this information – you really have earned your four stars with this scoop!
So Burger Lad® does it yet again with an exclusive look at the next promotional burger at McDonald’s. Why read the rest… you know we’re the best!
Burger Lad®