Worth the Hype? | McDonalds Spicy Korean Burger Review

In yet another blog post for Worth The Hype/What the Hell, I’m ruining my health (and this time my wallet) for yet another review - this time for the new McDonald’s Spicy Korean Burger (both chicken and beef, which is why my wallet is kinda dying right now).

What’s the Situation

So this is McDonald’s Malaysia basically kicking off a “Discover the World” campaign, whereby they are launching what I assume must be monthly/bi-monthly burgers celebrating different countries. This is actually something that Malaysians have seen before - they previously sold the Spicy Korean Beef Burger in 2017, the chicken version is new.

This campaign I would say is actually one of the bigger campaigns from McDonalds, with them making almost what is like a whole drama series - 4 minutes each ‘episode’ - in order to promote the burger. You can check them out here!

So I’m pretty sure you didn’t really care about the above information, but I thought it was fun for you guys to know anyways. So here’s what you came for. What the hell is in this burger.

(Here I’m talking about what they promote it as, rather than my personal thoughts - that comes later)

I’m going to start with the chicken first, as that is the newer one. The star of the Spicy Korean Chicken Burger is meant to be the kimchi-seasoned crispy chicken patty. You have a spicy Korean sauce, mixed vegetables & cheese, completed by two charcoal buns.

For the beef version, it is a kimchi-seasoned beef patty, and you get the idea. It is a similar kind of concept to the above kind of burger.

Sadly there are no cris-cross fries :(

Price

So I personally just grabbed a supper bite ahead of the Champions League final, and got a chicken version a-la-carte and a beef version medium set (although I hardly think it matters which one is which. A-la-carte is RM12.74 and the set version (medium) is RM15.08. Then there’s a 6% tax on top, so it comes to RM29.50 total. (RM13.50 for a-la-carte and RM16 for set if you really must know the breakdown with tax)

I can’t quite find the price for the large set anywhere, so I’m just going to double check and get back to you guys if I can find it out there somewhere.

Review

I think I’m just going to talk about the concept behind both the burgers, because I would say they are really similar, with the difference pretty much coming when you munch on the patty.

The buns are decent, nothing to write home about, but does give it a more premium feel, especially when put together with those grilled onions - which I don’t think that McDonald’s do too much of, but I think this was a pretty tasty application.

I think my hand is a really bad use for scale because it is so darn big, but this is the chicken version

With both burgers, spice-wise, I would say the only thing giving spice is the sauce. The respective patties or the buns (I don’t know, I’ve had some experiences where the spice was coming from the bun) aren’t spicy (or at least not THAT spicy). But the sauce is pretty tasty - I personally think it is a spiced up version of their Smokey Grilled Beef burger sauce.

So when you get the chicken, you kinda face a weirdly shaped patty. It is kinda rectangular in shape, which almost makes it feel like it matches more like a prosperity burger kinda shape, but I mean I’m not too bothered about that kind of thing.

The patty almost feels like a hybrid between a fillet o fish patty and a usual McChicken/Spicy Chicken McDeluxe kind of patty in terms of both the consistency (how hard it is) and just general appearance.

The chicken one as a whole is pretty decent. I would say that I personally think that the chicken version is slightly more original in terms of flavour profile, but I’ll go into that after talking about the beef version. The flavour of the chicken is I guess more like a spicy chicken mcdeluxe rather than anything remotely kimchi-related.

The beef one kinda came in a mess, so IDK, I kinda had no choice but to take it like this after adjusting for a few minutes

My only problem with the beef version is that it tastes way too much like the smokey grilled beef burger. The patty isn’t that distinguishable by the supposed kimchi taste, and in general the contents are really similar to the smokey grilled beef.

That’s why I would say that if you want something a bit more original, go for the chicken version. BUT, they are both burgers, so if you want something just for taste - the beef version does have a more premium kind of taste to it - naturally by using beef. Basically, just pick your favourite protein.

WTH? Worth the Hype or What the Hell?

For me, this is a pretty clear Worth the Hype. It is tasty. Simple as that. This is a winner.