After a successful launch last summer, the McSpicy is back at McDonald’s, much to the excitement of foodie fans who failed to get their hands on it last time around. It comes as the fast food chain has had another menu shake up, waving goodbye to some fan favourites.
I, for one, had never heard of the McSpicy until the announcement of its return from Wednesday (April 27), and for someone who gets serious ‘fear of missing out’, I had to go and try it.
I made my way around the drive thru and ordered it as a medium meal - and heard the bloke in the car in front also order one, too, so they seem pretty popular.
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Priced at £5.79 for a meal, it’s nearly five times the price of my usual plain mayo chicken (boring, I know), so would it live up to the hype, and the price tag?
The McSpicy is one of six new menu items on the McDonald’s menu this week, including the Grand Big Mac, Grand Big Mac with bacon, cheesy garlic bites, Flake raspberry McFlurry and Flake chocolate McFlurry.
Starring a fiery chicken breast fillet, lettuce and mayo on a sesame seed bun, it’s not the most topping-filled burger I’ve ever seen at the fast food joint, with no limited edition sauce or cheese.
My burger arrived neatly assembled in an orange box, and thankfully they’d gone fairly light on the mayo, as I’m not a huge fan of the condiment. Inside the bag was also a medium fries, a straw for my drink, and a side order of cheesy garlic bites.
To look at, the chicken fillet is fairly large, with an orange tinge to the crunchy coating, holding in all the heat. Due to the limited ingredients taken to assemble the burger, it’s not one that causes a huge mess either, or leaves sauce and cheese dripping everywhere.
I took one bite of the burger and in the first few seconds, I worried that it would be a repeat of the spicy McNuggets not being spicy - but then it hit me. There was a tingling sensation across my tongue as I reached for my cooling Coca-Cola, but I fear this may have been a mistake.
The next thing I knew, there was quite a bit of a burning sensation at the back of my throat, having pushed the spices further to the back of my mouth. As someone who typically orders a chicken tikka masala - it was hot.
It was undeniably tasty, but far too spicy for me to eat a whole one. But those who love a good kick of chilli in their meals will be dying to try this.
The burger is filling, the bread sweet and chewy with the lettuce and mayo offering some relief from the heat.
The cheesy garlic bites were much more to my liking. A portion of five cost £1.99 and feature a blend of mozzarella and Emmental cheese, in a garlic herb coating, served with a rich tomato dip.
Despite feeling as though the McSpicy had singed all my tastebuds off, they were full of garlic flavour and reminded me of Italian style dough balls.
They’re very much a welcome addition to the menu, seeing as their chilli cheese predecessor was - you guessed it - too spicy for me.
The addition of the new menu items mean certain iconic burgers have been dropped from the menu for now - including the Big Tasty. The fast food chain brought back the iconic burger on March 16 for a limited time only, along with two other flavours.
Other items that have been removed from McDonald’s restaurants include the Homestyle Crispy Chicken burger and Creme Egg McFlurries. And while I appreciate most people will love the McSpicy, I’ll patiently await the return of the Chicken Big Mac instead.
