Summer Nugget Sauces - Hong Kong - July 2013

Consumed on 21 & 22 July 2013

Location - McDonald's, Mong Kok East, and Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Price - 1 Free with nugget combo, each additional sauce $1HKD = $0.13USD

Calories - Unknown

Wow, I really didn't mean to take so long to write a new review, but it's been a busy couple of weeks.  My wife has been abroad, I've switched jobs, which had some visa issues, and I even switched over to a new laptop that my wife brought back.  So this has been the first time I've had enough free time to write a new review.  When I was in Hong Kong, I was impressed by the promo dessert menu, but I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a promo burger on offer.  The promo was for a box of 20 McNuggets (which isn't common in Asia, usually only 4, 6, or 9 pieces are available), and a range of 4 new sauces. 2 of which were launched on our last day in Hong Kong (so we tried them along side the Kumquat Green Tea Punch). I'll break this review down into each individual sauce, to keep it orderly. 

Singapore Curry Sauce

On the 21st, my wife and I stopped into the Mong Kok East branch of McDonald's in order to try the 2 sauces which were supposed to finish that day, the Singapore Curry, and the Honey Mustard sauce. I ordered a 6 piece nugget meal, so I could add the Choconana Cake McFlurry to review. The young girl (couldn't have been older than 16-17) had a very hard time understanding me, so I asked for one of each of both the Curry, and Honey Mustard sauces, and she just stared at me blankly.  She put a sweet and sour sauce on the tray and I handed it back to her saying I wanted to try the Curry and Honey Mustard.  She gave me a pretty dirty look and went over to the other side of the country trying to hunt one down. She came back with one Curry and practically threw it on the tray.  When I asked about the Honey Mustard, she just answered back "no".  I told her I didn't mind paying for it (here in Singapore you have to pay 30 cents for a sauce packet), I got the standard "no" back. Seeing as Honey Mustard isn't all that special, I got fed up and went to find my wife.

Instead of getting fries with the nugget combo, I substituted it for a cup of corn.  Though this might seem strange for those of you in the West, it's pretty common throughout Asia. 

The Singapore Curry Sauce in all honestly, wasn't that special, since we live in Singapore and can get Curry Sauce all the time. It was interesting to see that this was a different variation on the sauce.  All the sauces I had in Hong Kong were noticeably waterier and thinner than the ones I have in Singapore, which is strange since they are both made in the USA.  I'm not sure why they didn't use the exact same ones as Singapore.  Neither of us were all that impressed with it, but I guess if you don't have a constant access to Curry Sauce, it would have been a nice change.

Rating - 2/5

Honey Mustard Sauce

The following day, we hit up another McDonald's in Causeway Bay, so we could try the two sauces launched that day, the Korean Chilli Sauce, and Sesame Miso Sauce.  I didn't run into any difficulties ordering the extra sauces like the day previously. One comes free with a nugget purchase, and each additional packet was 1HKD. They even had some Honey Mustard left over, so I grabbed one of those as well.  The Honey Mustard, as expected wasn't anything special.  Honey Mustard was actually promo sauce in Singapore about a month before, and though I tried it, I never wrote a review on it, because it was pretty simple. What was different was that it wasn't a bright yellow like most honey mustard sauce I've had, but rather a creamy white.  The grains of mustard seed were a very nice touch, and something you wouldn't expect to see in a McDonald's sauce packet.  It was a little too sweet for my taste, and I would have preferred a lightly more mustard flavour to it.

Rating - 2.5/5

Sesame Miso Sauce

I felt that both the 22 July flavour launches were more exciting, since they were both flavours that I've never had as a nugget sauce before. I'm a pretty big fan of any type of sesame flavoured anything, so I was hoping the sesame miso sauce would be pretty good, and it was.  It had a strong hit of sesame, and a very subtle miso flavour that followed it.  Since we only had 6 nuggets, 3 sauces and 2 of us were splitting it, that meant only one nugget per sauce, per person.  After finishing the nugget I immediately started dipping my fries in the sauce, and I felt that the saltiness of the fries was probably an even better combination for this sauce than the nugget. Though the ingredient list started off with a couple not very welcoming items, it does not only include real Miso, but also soy sauce, sesame seeds, sesame oil and mirin!  If only it was a bit thicker, I think it would have been a perfect 5.

Rating - 4/5

Korean Chilli Sauce

This is the flavour I was looking most forward too.  Not only is my wife Korean, I love pepper paste on pretty much everything, and I genuinely liked the sauce on the Korean McSpicy Hong Kong had back in March, I thought this would be a perfect nugget sauce, if pulled off correctly. When I took a look at the ingredients, and saw that Pickled Chilli Paste was the #1 ingredient I knew we were in for a treat.  This sauce was great, so great, it felt that we wasted the first nugget trying the honey mustard when it should have been put towards this. My wife thought it tasted just as picked/vinegared pepper paste should, and she quite enjoyed it. Once we finished off with the nuggets she dipped every last remaining fry we had into this sauce.  Sure, it wasn't really "spicy" but the flavours worked well.  Also, whereas I felt the other promo sauces were a bit too watery, this one worked because pepper paste like this is usually too thick to dip anything into, so it was just watery enough to allow proper dippage, but not enough to make it lose the taste.

Rating - 5/5