Kickin' Ketchup Shakers - Philippines - October 2014

McDonald's Philippines Kickin' Ketchup Shakers

  

Purchased on 13 September 2014, McDonald's Glorietta Complex, Makati City, Manila, Philippines

Consumed on 14 October 2014, McDonald's Parkway Parade, Singapore

Price - 10PHP = $0.22USD

Calories - Unknown

 

When I was in Manila last month, it took me asking at least 5 branches before I found one that would sell me just the shaker packets.  Most I asked said I could get them with purchasing a large fry, which I wasn't in the mood for eating at the time.  One branch eventually caved in and sold me a single (almost expired) packet of Ketchup Shakers for the paltry price of 10PHP.  The receipt she gave me was for a nugget dipping sauce, so I knew how to ask for them going forward.  I had to ask a couple more branches until I could find the two other (yet to be reviewed) flavours, but I eventually did within 24 hours.  The Ketchup shakers along with the other flavours had been running for at least 2 months before I arrived, and were discontinued within a couple days of my departure, only to be replaced by Twister Fries. Something like this is almost unheard of as I always seemingly miss the new items and coupled with the new sides which were only launched the day before we arrived, it was one of the luckiest trips I've had in a long time.

 

Even though these were about to pass their best before date, I knew they would keep just from the sheer amount of salt inside, so I kept them for over a month until the next time I had proper McDonald's fries, since the Sweet Potato Wedges in Darwin didn't count. I was a bit worried that leaving them too long would cause them to solidify in the Singapore humidity like the Nacho Cheese Shakers did, but these FIlipino shakers held up just fine. I believe I've mentioned before that some shakers are thicker and chunkier than others, but these were easily the largest shakers I've ever had, both in the amount provided in each packet, and the size of the powder.  Each grain was at least 3-4X larger in size than a typical Shaker powder, which make it look pretty good nice coated on the fries, but it made it near impossible to get an even coating. The powder was about 30% red flakes, which I hoped would have been the ketchup flavouring, and 60% white chunks, which I assumed may have been sea salt due to the size and shape, but I found out that after taking my first bite that it must have been mostly sugar.

Now, I'm not a fan of ketchup, so I took my first bite with a bit of hesitation expecting the worst, but aside from the sweetness, there wasn't any noticeable ketchup, tomato, or other flavour whatsoever. There was a hint of salt, but I'm not entirely sure if that was from the pre-salted fries, or from the shakers themselves.  These were noticeably less salty than some of the other flavours I've had from around Asia, but they were easily the weakest "flavour" I've ever had.   The primary taste coming from these was sweet, so much so that both my wife and I thought they were far too sweet and it just didn't mix well at all with the oily and salty fries. Some shakers I've had before were pretty good, some didn't taste anything like they flavour they aimed for, some were just plain disgusting (but were still interesting to try), these tasted nothing like ketchup, and absolutely ruined the fries we ate them with.  Although with the way I absolutely despise real ketchup, it may have very well been a good thing that they didn't taste anything like ketchup at all...

Rating - 0/5