"American Vintage" - Cheese Fries with Bacon - Japan - February 2014

Purchased - Early February 2014, in Hitachi, Japan

Consumed - 16 February 2014, in Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Price - 100Y = $0.99USD add on to combo.

Calories - Unknown

The Cheese Fries with Bacon was a new part of McDonald's Japan "American Vintage" line of promo items in January & February 2014.  This is similar to the previous years "Big America" promotional burgers, but they've changed it up a bit this year by using a 70's and 80's marketing images to promote these new burgers.  Unfortunately since burgers would never make the trip down to Singapore in the post, my friend Nick was nice enough to send me the cheese and bacon packet for me to recreate the Cheese Fries here in Singapore (though due to the cost savings, we ate it in Malaysia).  He didn't give me a very glowing review of the taste when he tried it, and I also had a friend from Korea spend a weekend in Japan, and he told me that these fries were pretty gross, so I went into it expecting the worst.

Before I talk about the taste, I'll mention the packaging the unique packaging the cheese came in.  Since neither of my friend's never mentioned the packet that the cheese was served in, I was expecting it to come in a cup similar to a nugget sauce, but it actually came in this strange floppy plastic packaging. It was like if you had soft processed cheese inside a thin plastic bag. It was made this way so you could fold the top harder plastic backwards (which caused little holes to open) and then squeeze the cheese out through the holes formed in the top, by pushing on the plastic behind.  Nice little engineering by those Japanese packaging producers, it worked perfectly.

Due to inventive packaging, I was able to get a nice even spread of cheese to cover the entire large fries we had ordered to try this out.  The "Bacon" was clearly not real bacon, and was even more evident with the large "Bacon Flavor Topping" written on the side of the package.  It was served in identical packaging as the Japanese Shaka Shaka seasoning.  The bacon pieces were small, mouse-turd like balls of dark, unidentifiable mass.  They were softer than they looked, and they had a smell of a mixture of salad bacon bits, and charcoal.  

When mixed together, this was probably one of the least healthy toppings I've ever had at McDonald's.  Not only are fries terrible for your health, the cheese was undeniably processed cheese (thus why I could stay unrefrigerated in that packaging), and the "bacon' was so not even bacon, I don't really want to know what it was made from.  I took my first bite expecting something horrible, and when I actually found it pleasant, I knew this had to be horrible for my health.  I wasn't the only one who enjoyed it either, both my wife, and my friend visiting from Taiwan (who brought me the Korean BBQ Burger) were sharing this with me and they all rather enjoyed it as well.

This is one guilty pleasure that I'm glad isn't on a regular menu. 

Rating - 4/5