Steakhouse XT™ Burger Did Me Wrong

Mrs. Skeptimist had late meetings today, and the little Skeptimist and I hadn't terrorized our city with a 'boys night out' for awhile, so I let him choose the locale.

Burger King. Gahhhh.

We're trying to pack the calories into him right now, so it was a good choice for a frenetic nine year old. For a middle-aged dude watching his diet, it was like being eviscerated by a muskrat.

I sampled the Steakhouse XT™ Burger, since I had previously partaken of other BK offerings and found them all wanting. Wanting flavor. Wanting subtlety. Wanting to look something like the sandwiches we see on the TV box.

Let's see if I can find the correct words to describe the XT: a char-grilled slop-turd between two corn-dusted bathroom sponges. Yeah, that works.

The XT was thick in the way lead ingots are thick. Dense and impenetrable, like an NHL hockey puck that's been flame-teased and slathered with a runny ketchup-mayo glop that was in a race to soppy with the irriguous tomato slices.

Lettuce coated the top like a veggie-tarpaulin, its sole purpose seemingly to act as a moisture barrier to prevent the bun lid from disintegrating while I gnawed on the beef-biscuit.

It was not good.

How the hell can people line up for this detritus, day after day? It's 770 calories, 1380 mg of sodium, and 46 grams of fat, just for the fucking sandwich. That's more than half my salt and fat allowance for an entire day, not to mention over 1/3 of my calorie budget. If I was Lewis Black, I would now scream, "And it tastes like shit!"

I love my son, so the next time we go out, it's gonna be something a little more healthy. Like the dumpster behind the pet store.

The King has that peculiar facial expression because he just finished his meal and immediately shat his tights.