 |
| McDonald's Philippines Longganisa & Garlic Rice Meal |
Consumed on 29 October 2016
Location - McDonald's El Pueblo, Ortigas Centre, Pasig City, Philippines
Price - 112PHP = $2.23USD
Calories - 400kcal
 |
| McDonald's Philippines Receipt 2016 |
 |
| Breakfast box which is used for all regular menu items. |
When I was in The Philippines a couple weeks ago there wasn't any limited time offering available on the dinner menu, and since my hotel didn't include breakfast this trip was a perfect opportunity to try one the breakfast options available. There were actually a few limited time breakfast options, and I'll speak more about them briefly at the end of the review but I went with the regular menu, and only-available-in-the-Philippines, Longganisa with Garlic Rice as it was by far the most interesting option on the menu.
Since rice is a relatively common item at McDonald's throughout South East Asia, I'll touch on it first. Even though the meal was served in a box of it's own, the rice was wrapped, which just seemed like a waste of paper. The portion size was considerably larger than those you might get in say Thailand or Vietnam, but the real difference was that it wasn't just plain white rice, but it was cooked together with small pieces of garlic inside. This is a pretty common way of serving rice in The Philippines I've found, and I've also always felt the rice usually the rice is a little bit on the oily side, not because it's fried, but because of the pieces of garlic found throughout the rice. Not totally sure if that's because oil is added to the garlic, or if it's natural oils coming out during cooking. (Someone let me know in the comments?) McDonald's rice was no exception as it was a little bit oily and fell apart easily, but also did feel it didn't have that much garlic taste, even though you could clearly see it mixed in. It was also a bit on the firm side, from being slightly overcooked.
As interesting as Garlic Rice is, that's not what I ordered this dish for. I ordered it for the two, unfortunately shaped pieces of Longanisa sausage. Now, I've had this type of sausage in the Philippines before as pretty much every hotel breakfast has it, but it's usually shaped more like typical breakfast sausages and not these flattened patties. Not sure why McDonald's serves them in this shape as they aren't served on any sandwich as far as I can tell. A quick Google search corroborated my typical hotel breakfast experience in that there are traditionally 2 recipes for this type of sausage, either sweet, or salty & sticky. Being McDonald's this was typically "middle of the road" with both hint of sweetness, but also the expected saltiness together with yet more garlic. I was initially surprised by the sweetness, but it actually ended up being a nice change to a typical breakfast sausage patty. The saltiness came from soy sauce rather than simple table salt. I was also quite impressed by how soft the sausage as the meat was extremely lean. Although it had the consistency and appearance of a traditional patty, it fell apart on touch, and a knife was certainly not needed to cut through it.
Despite it's unfortunate appearance, it was actually very tasty all things considering, and since it didn't taste like anything I've ever had at McDonald's before, that's exactly what I'm looking for with country specific regular menu items. The slightly overcooked rice could be overlooked, so the only real issue I had with this meal was that the two pieces of sausage didn't really amount to all that much, so there ended up being far too much rice for the sausage, so I ended up only finishing half.
Rating - 4/5
 |
| McDonald's Philippines Chocolate Crumble Hotcakes |
As mentioned earlier, there were a few limited time offering available, with the first being the Double Choco Crumble Hotcakes. I didn't feel that Oreo topped pancakes were really all that exiting, so I ignored my sweet tooth and skipped it.
 |
| McDonald's Philippines Chicken Fillet Italiana |
The other special item available was the Chicken Fillet Italiana, which is also available on the lunch/dinner menu (that's why the photo above has Coke instead of Coffee). This one was a bit more interesting, but really it's just the chicken patty with the McSpaghetti sauce and cheese on top.
 |
| McDonald's Eggdesal |
There was one other item which I did consider ordering which was the Cheesy Eggdesal. Which was a folded egg on a traditional bun. It used a local breakfast bun over the standard McMuffin, so I'll probably give it a try on a future trip if I don't have anything else worth reviewing at the time.