A few months back i was happily enjoying my double whopper with cheese meal with some of my colleagues at our regular "fine dining" haunt, the Burger King at the Concourse Level of KLCC. Nicely chomping my way into the succulent, flamed grilled double beef patties i have been accustomed to, i was approached by this person wearing in a nice stripy short sleeve shirt sporting a nametag with a picture of a crown and the letters M A N A G E R spelt on it. There were some other letter on it, i assume it was his name, but it just doesnt come to mind.
"YES!! I did refill my large coke 10 times!! So what?! Its a free refill!! And yes, i DID pay for my meal", those words almost came out of my mouth. But before i could utter one word, the manager nicely held in front of me some quarters of some burgers on a plate. Me, being a bit confused went a bit blur, so the manager explained that they are giving out free samplets of this new burger they want to introduce in Malaysia, called the garlic burger or some dodgy name like that. So yes, i happily accepted the offer of trying it out at the expense of filling up a feedback form.
Now, my rule of thumb when filling out feedback forms is to always give out bad reviews and always try and find something that annoys me or something that isn't right. I mean, *if* they even look at my feedback, they would at least find some areas of improvement right? I mean, it can only get better for us consumers. Anyway, if i really DON'T find anything to complain about, which usually isn't the case, i wouldn't like come up with any out of my imagination, so i guess, fair enough. For my review of the "Garlic Burger" then, i was very dissapointed with it then. I mean, it just tasted like a two garlic breads which didnt have enough garlic taste in them with a beef patty slidded in between. And i told them that in the feedback form. DO you like this product? NO. Would you buy it? NO. What would make this product even better? IF it came with a check for a million bucks inserted in between the burger it will be a much MUCH better product! OK, just joking, but maybe if they put in some mayonaise, and some lettuce, then MAYBE, it might taste a bit more decent. So that was it.
Fast forward to yesterday. To my suprise, while driving through the drive thru burger King at Sri Hartamas, they were promoting the "Garlicka Burger" there. From the looks of the picture, it looked pretty decent and me being the adventurous and forgiving type decided to give it another chance. So yeah, i went to the ordering counter and ordered a Garlicka Burger and one regular fries. When receiving the packet from the pickup counter, i checked to see whether my order was correct ( I always do this now since one day where i didn't check and the people working there decided to NOT put in my fries and onion rings... oh well ), i saw a Junior Whopper in there instead. After complaining to the poor fella there, it turns out that the Garlicka burger doesnt have its own wrapping yet, so they reuse the Junior Whopper instead. Driving back, you could smell the garlic aroma coming out of the paper bag and it was mesmerizing! It didn't help either that it was like half past 10 and i had an early lunch as well.
Getting back home, turning on the Astro,( Darn, Now i just remembered that i missed Top Gear yesterday. I guess they are showing it tonight at 12:30am), i opened up the wrapping to unravel my dinner. Presentation wise, it didnt look as appealing as it looked on the picture (as per normal, i am such a sucker for these things), and guess what!? Mayo AND lettuce inside the burger!! I know i know i know. I am sure that after numerous months of satisfaction surveys and studies and testing, they came up with the conclusion that by adding mayo and lettuce would enhance the taste of the burger, and it was definitely not because of some irritating customer's ( who continously rambles and complains) measely suggestion to add in lettuce and mayo. But i like to think that, yes, my suggestion was indeed heard by the Burger King management, and it was MY suggestion that actually made a difference in this world. Why? Because it makes me feel good. That's why. Cheap thrill. What the heck!
Anyway, chomping my way into it, it seems that the burger is still pretty taste less. I think it could be because they didnt actually put that much mayo in it. Now, come to think of it, did it actually HAVE mayo in it in the first place!! Anyway, the bread tasted like you standard issue burger buns and the beef, well there's no flame grilled beef burger patties better than the Burger king one is there? But still, for a killer product, you need that extra bit of special taste in there, and for the garlicka burger (actually i dont even know wheter i spelled it correctly), the special bit which is supposed to be the garlic taste just doens't do it. I mean, i think its concept that is flawed since, the garlic flavour is meant to be a flavour enhancer, not the MAIN flavor. So just put a bit of it, and you just get a hint of it, which is insufficient. If you put blob of it, it tastes just downright disgusting. Burger King decided to put a bit of it, and basically it just tastes like a garlic bread with not enough garlic on it, with a beef patty in the middle and some lettuce. I mean, the garlic is barely noticeable that it seems like a Swiss Mushroom without the swiss mushroom, a cheese burger without the cheese or tomato sauce or gerkin, like a whooper without the whopper (?). I rate the Burger King Garlicka Burger 1 1/2 burgers out of five.
Anyway, note to self. Next trip to Burger King, get yourself a swiss mushroom. Gotta make a move. Now where's my mints. THis garlic smell coming out of my mouth is disgusting!!
Laters.
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