Fast Food Critic - Reviews, News and Nutrition Information about Fast Food.

It’s going to be a great week! Two new FFC reviewers are joining immediately, with another one to follow very soon. The fast food scene is too big for one person to cover, and I needed some help. The people coming on board will give readers more opinions and different perspectives on these speedy meals we consume. They will help take the site to the next level, and I’m proud to have them join me. Please welcome them.

Al Hunter lives with his family, three cats, and Sasha the Siberian Husky, in north suburban Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His combined interests in food and information led to early development of a recipe database for diskette based desktop computers that encouraged sharing of food ideas among a group of like minded friends. A need to understand what it meant to take responsibility for eating meat led into a decades long relationship with a rural Ontario hunting community. As life raced by he found himself working on the technological cutting edge of the packaged goods business and then supermarket retail online sales and marketing. He now specializes in search engine optimization support for small business websites but spends as much time as possible cooking, eating, photographing, and writing about his many food adventures. You can find his ’slow food’ stories at: Torontovore.ca

Wendi-Jane is a vegetarian (woah, suddenly the FFC crowd goes silent) but she’s not against killing for food. She just doesn’t want to put meat in her mouth. She loves cats. She still enjoys wearing leather (insert cracking whip sound) and is not a vigilante about animal rights issues. She insists her diet is just as normal as anyone else, and she stops at many of the same restaurants we do. She simply chooses to substitute the processed meat products with plant-based options. During a recent conversation she told me — “I’m here to cast a critical eye on the vegetarian options available at fast food chains, and trust me, there will be blood”. — As you can see, Wendi is not shy about sharing her thoughts. I can also tell you she’s one of the nicest, most sincere, positive-energy people I’ve met since starting this site. She’s currently working in the music industry, in a position that would make rock ‘n roll fans jealous. The details shall remain private for the moment, but expect an update in the future. Like Al, Wendi is also from Canada. Finally, let me say, if we were all condiments, I would be Mustard or Ketchup, and Wendi would be Hot Sauce! Can you dig it?

In case you missed it, John came on board two weeks ago, and now with Al and Wendi joining, that makes FFC a Team. I’m picky about who joins the site. I’m not just interested in good writers, but in good people. These folks have impressed me with their character, as much as their food reviewing skills. They’re the type of individuals I’m proud to call friends, in addition to being contributors to the site.

Fast Food Critic’s focus has been the USA until this point, but now Canada will have a presence too. I also hope to find volunteers in other countries like Japan, China, India, anywhere the major ‘brands’ are located. The site’s ‘main’ focus will stay on the USA, but I feel it’s important to also include other cultures, and I want to give FFC readers ‘variety’. And, I personally want to see what’s going on around the world myself.

“Arby’s makes me angry. I’ve seen posters and advertisements for new cheddar curly fries everywhere in my town. I love the old curly fries but was pumped about a new flavor. It’s not a new flavor. They just give you a small cup of cheese to dip. The fries are the exact same curly fries. This is stupid. They make it sound like new fries but it’s nothing but a cup of cheese they already put on sandwiches, served on the side. This is false advertising. You should warn people about it. I’m mad at Arby’s and this really sucks.” – Matt S. from Garfield Heights, Ohio.

Matt, your message hits close to home because I encountered the same situation two years ago. This is not a new item, but it comes and goes from the Arby’s menu. Anyway, I went there expecting the fries themselves to be cheddar flavored. When I opened my bag to find the standard curly fries with a tiny container of warm cheese, it was a surprise. Indeed they simply added a plastic cup of melted cheddar and renamed the product. I don’t believe it’s false advertising, just a bit confusing.

Arby’s is great, but this particluar product campaign misses the mark in my opinion. Thanks for writing. Now FFC readers will be better informed.

Up to this point, FFC has been a one-man show, however it’s time I bring in some help. Not only because I’ve gained 20 pounds over the last 5 months from eating and reviewing so much food, but also because I want to give readers more content, and a different perspective on things. I’m happy and proud to announce John Cauley is coming on board to participate in this fast food adventure. Please join me in welcoming him.

John works nights as a radio personality at WZZO-FM in Allentown, PA. He also works behind the scenes at the station, writing and producing commercials, and is involved with various creative services. He’s been a fast food eater since college, and is always eager to try the latest products, and not shy about giving his opinion on them. Since graduating a few years ago, he’s cut back on the amount of fast food he consumes, but still hits a drive-thru at least once a week. He first review is coming soon.

My apologies for the post earlier today. I’m NOT closing FFC.

I’m having a bad week, and I let some things get under my skin. I’m going to take a couple days off from posting, to regroup, refresh, and work on some coding and other stuff on the technical side of the site that I’ve fallen behind on. I will be back posting and reviewing again within a few days, stronger and better than ever.

My sincere gratitude to those who’ve sent and posted messages of support. I have deleted my rant on the fast food industry. Perhaps I will re-post and expand on those thoughts at another time, but for now I just want to move on and forget it.

Dear FFC Readers,

Wow… and, I’m sorry. This morning I received 12,000+ visitors in a short period of time, causing the site to exceed bandwidth limits of my hosting account. As a result of the heavy traffic, my web hosting company shut me down and said I was using too many resources, affecting other websites on the same ’shared’ web server. Before today, the largest amount of unique visitors I had in a day was about 2,000. This morning I had 6X that number in only a couple hours. Hence the “Wow”.

Where did the big rush of traffic come from? The free slurpee news post was picked up by lots of different sites, including a couple very large ones with high traffic, and they all linked to me. This is a wonderful thing of course, but my ’shared’ hosting account was simply not prepared to handle the extra load.

The good news — FFC has moved to a Dedicated Server. This won’t happen again.

I apologize for being offline most of the afternoon. Believe me, I was just as surprised as anyone. Thanks for the understanding and support. It’s been a wild day.

Congratulations to Philip Given, winner of the KFC contest. Philip entered the fast food world today with a hunger for new recipe chicken, and he bravely went where no man has gone before. For being the first, and for sending in pics from his adventure, he will receive $50 cash via PayPal.com, plus reimbursement for the meal, and his name up in lights on the FFC website. Ok, there aren’t any “lights” but here’s some bold text.

Congratulations to Mr. Philip Given, of York, Pennsylvania.

UPDATE: 5/29, 10:39 A.M.(CST) We have a winner - details to follow.

To celebrate KFC’s new Chipotle Crispy Chicken recipe, and because I want to do something nice for one of my readers, I’m running the following, quick, mini-contest.

The first person who sends me their photograph (or friends, family, kids, etc.) trying the new recipe chicken, will receive the following:

– $50 cash, instantly via PayPal.
– Reimbursement for your meal. I pay for the food. (receipt required, 1 bucket)
– Your smiling face on FFC. (optional, your choice)
– Your website link posted, or any site you want to promote. (optional)

This post is being made at 5:25 P.M. (CST)
Please send photo to: editor@fastfoodcritic.com

I would like to see a photo of the chicken, packaging, and preferably somebody eating. The receipt can be supplied separately. The first photo I receive that meets the criteria will be declared the winner, and will be posted ASAP.

Please note: I will be offline after 10 P.M. but will update this tomorrow morning. In the event that multiple photos are received over-night, the winner will be decided by the time-stamp of the email message.

No, it’s not the title for Playboy’s next feature spread. Not yet. It’s just my way of honoring these hard-working women in a casual weekend post. During the short life of FFC some of my favorite exchanges have come with the ladies who handle public relations and media for the large chains. There are men doing the same jobs, but so far all the reps (except one) I’ve met has been female. These friendly ladies have the news, press releases and product information I expected, but they also (sometimes) tempt me with free food.

Friendly Women and Free Food — I knew there was a reason I started this web site!

Seriously though, despite my appreciation for their kind offers, I have not accepted any. The offers are made innocently, but I fear that feasting on freebies might have an effect on my judgement (if only subconsciously) especially if I’m reviewing that item, or other items from the same company. So I will continue to reject such offers, because I feel more comfortable doing reviews when I pay for the food with my own money.

But I want to say Thank You to these women for being fine representatives of their companies, while still managing to be REAL people, funny and interesting. For any new visitors to the site who might be working in the same field, please feel free to contact me at anytime. I don’t want your freebies but I love press releases and new product announcements, and I’m always interested in chatting about food.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mom’s visiting the site today.

On this pleasant Sunday morning I would like to present everyone with a short video showing the light box I’ve built for my fast-food photography. It’s simple but effective.

I suppose it’s normal to worry about saying something to upset people when you are starting a new site. After putting your heart and soul into it, you want everyone to enjoy what you have created. However, the reality of the situation is no matter what you say or do, there will always be somebody who disagrees. When doing product reviews, placing scores on items, the pressure can be intense because of the loyal fan-base and employees from each chain watching on. When you are new at doing it, trying to make your mark on the fast food world, that spotlight has a way of making you feel like a tiny ant, who was unlucky enough to crawl past a curious kid with a giant magnifying glass on a bright sunny day. We all know what happens to the poor ant.

With the helpful feedback of a couple friends (one old, one new) I’ve realized that I have been too conservative at times. I’ve been playing it too safe. One example is my review of the Burger King Loaded Steakhouse Burger.

I had originally set a score of only 2.5 stars out of 5, and even used the term “rip-off” to describe it’s value at the $5 price point. But after sleeping on it, I woke up the next morning and changed my review to 3 stars, and removed the rip-off comment and replaced it with a more polite “I want my money back”. I worried that I was too harsh, or that I might have over-reacted. After all, it was the lowest score I had given yet.

But I realize now, I should have trusted my first instinct. There is no reason to be afraid. I was not slamming Burger King, or trying to hurt them. I was simply attempting to give my honest opinion about this one particular product.

The fact is — It’s hard to be a nice-guy when giving a bad-review.

This weekend, I will be a critic of my own work, going over every review that I’ve written so far, and making sure I expressed myself in the way I had originally intended. I might even update a few scores by dropping a half-star, or increasing a half-star.

The site is new — I’m new — and the ’system’ is still being developed. This is a perfect time to make such adjustments, and look within myself to become a better writer and reviewer. At barely 2 months old, FFC has come a long way fast, but now it’s time to learn from mistakes and build towards a better future. I hope that anybody who might read this post, or has ever visited my site, will bear with me as I experience these growing pains. I’m dedicated to making Fast Food Critic the best it can be, but I know there’s going to be some detours and bumps in the road as we travel along.

My sincere thanks to my old friend RJ, and my new friend DD (Geezer).