This installment of my experiment to find worthwhile foods at national fast food chains may be the most related to my regular food writing. These restaurants, following a trend set by other industry giants Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., have spent the last several years introducing all manner of “high end” sandwiches, aspiring to restaurant quality in order to vie for relevance and compete with diners and cafés nationally as well as locally.

In addition to the more expensive burgers and sandwiches purportedly assembled from better ingredients than their regular, cheaper fare, the chains have also attempted to shift their image from “peddlers of unhealthy garbage” to “light and healthy alternatives for the on-the-go consumer” with the introduction of tortilla wraps, “premium” salads, yogurt concoctions, apple “fries” for the kids, veggie burgers and the grilled chicken option.

The higher priced burgers are obviously going to be better than their dollar menu cousins, but are they comparable to a sit-down, pay-after-you-eat restaurant? Sure, it’s a salad, but is it healthier than the rest of the drive-through menu? Is it as good as a restaurant’s?

Let’s find out.

McDonald’s

While they offer the largest array of salads (four, DQ and BK just one apiece) and the more ambitious high-end burger line, McDonald’s is also the biggest offender as far as I’m concerned. Upon trying items from the value menu, I came across what could only be bone fragments in their McDouble sandwich. After asking around, the consensus states that this was not anomalous, but rather a common occurrence. I know you get what you pay for but this is ridiculous.

? 1/3 lb. Angus Burgers

First, let’s get the facts straight. “Angus” is a word tossed around quite carelessly these days (like “Tuscan”). Angus is a breed of cattle, but all cows still have less desirable cuts of meat. If you were a profit-grubbing international powerhouse like McDonald’s, set on making the most money by expending the least, what cuts would you buy? Exactly. No chuck or sirloin in these. And while the “Angus” burgers are better than their more modestly priced burger line, they still leave something to be desired.

Mushroom Swiss Angus Burger ($4.09) – While all fast food chains are guilty of serving strange mayonnaise, McDonald’s is stranger, brighter and more liberally applied. Even so, it couldn’t keep this burger from being dry. Perhaps it’s because unlike my other subjects, McDonald’s beef is precooked and merely reheated on premises. The mushroom texture seemed canned, but sporting a surprisingly real mushroom flavor – I’ve got to hand it to the whitecoats in the laboratory for pulling that one off. And unlike most fast food, this sandwich needed a little salt. I wasn’t “loving it.”

Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Burger ($4.59) – This one was a little better. Red onions go a long way with me. And while vaguely (not specifically smoky chipotle) spicy barbecue sauce did its best to mask, the beef was again fairly flavorless. It’s as if to set the Angus burgers apart from the MSG-laden cheap burgers, they intentionally made it bland. Super-thin strips of bacon and processed cheese add to the busyness of flavors that would be omitted if the beef were good enough to shine on its own.

Premium Chicken Club ($5.10) – This was the best sandwich I had at McDonald’s. The honey-wheat roll is the finest bread available at the establishment, real swiss cheese was a complete surprise and the green leaf lettuce was also unexpected. Though the chicken patty was far too small for the bun, and the weird mayo was there, this sandwich was pretty good. Comparable to a real restaurant? Of course not. None of them were. But if you want to spend a little more, these selections are technically superior to the “classics” that most people return for.

Many people will argue that McDonald’s has the best fries. While writing an article for Vogue which would end up in his book, “The Man Who Ate Everything,” Jeffrey Steingarten, one of my food writing heroes, actually rented an apartment within walking distance of a McDonald’s when searching for the best ketchup because he deemed their fries the finest, and wanted them to be hot and fresh for the ketchup tasting. They may have been the tops back in the ’80s and ’90s, but I find them to be limp for their thinness, and oversalted.

The salads at McDonald’s were better than I expected them to be, and with tender, juicy grilled chicken, fresh mixed greens and Newman’s dressing (good product, great cause), a pretty good deal for $4.99.

The Chicken Bacon Ranch is just that, no surprises. The Southwest Chicken Salad has more to offer. Corn chips, black beans, shaved carrots and shredded cheese keep things interesting. The Caesar is good, but a pretty loose interpretation. It contains the same mixed greens as the other salads (I didn’t find any romaine), plus grape tomatoes. A small pouch of croutons can be added or not. As far as healthy goes, you have to eschew the dressings and make sure to get grilled, not crispy, chicken if you want these salads to be a good choice. The Southwest Crispy Chicken Salad with dressing contains 660 calories, far more than the Big Mac.

Burger King

Back when I regularly ate fast food, I’d always take Burger King over McDonald’s (breakfast being the exception). It seemed just a little bit closer to real food. The flamebroiled beef fat smells permeating the air for a three-block radius seemed slightly reminiscent of summer barbecues (though it now reminds me more of freshly extinguished candles). And while the Whopper always seemed like a step up from McDonald’s burgers already, they too went ahead and started offering “premium” burgers. The Steakhouse XT (for “x-tra thick”) burger line attempts, and in my opinion succeeds, in trumping the Angus line at McDonald’s.

A1 Steakhouse XT ($4.49) – I’m sure the corporate think tank at BK assumes you associate A1 sauce with steak. I always thought of it as a bad thing, akin to ketchup in nice restaurants. If you’ve got great beef, A1 is an insult, like tartar sauce on a nice piece of salmon.

That aside, this burger was better than I thought it would be (of course I’ve low expectations for this whole experiment). At 7 ounces, it’s more than 30 percent bigger than the Angus burgers, but it’s 50 percent better as well. The kaiser bun is a step up, and the flecks of crispy onion were good when isolated, but too small to stand out in a bite. The beef is certainly the best part. Engineered to have the mouthfeel of a restaurant-quality burger, it actually comes pretty close. The only unnerving aspect was the pinkish hue. Fast food burgers are required to be cooked well-done (and it’s the only venue where I’d insist that myself), but there was an unnatural redness occurring from center to edge that was off-putting.

Smoky Cheddar Steakhouse XT ($4.49) – This one was similar, but had paper-thin (yet still stringy and tough) bacon, a cheese that was bland, rubbery and not at all smoky (smokiness was in the barbecue sauce), and fresh lettuce and tomato. Like all fast food burgers, this one was put together inconsistently and asymmetrically. It’s as if the assembler purposely stacks all the pickles in the middle, or the two tomato slices on one side, or the huge gob of sauce in one spot rather than evenly spread along the entire bun. It makes for a messy experience.

Dairy Queen

Dairy Queen overlooks the Youngs Bay Bridge in Astoria. Photo by Alex Pajunas.While more well-known for dessert items, DQ has steadily increased hot food business over the years. They’ve recently thrown their hat into the big burger ring with the 1/2-lb. Flamethrower Grillburger and the 1/2-lb. Grillburger with cheese. The first of their burgers I tried was the mushroom and swiss Grillburger ($3.69). Part of me liked it, but on the whole it was far too salty and saucy. The mushrooms seem to be bound in a soy sauce gravy, making mayo unnecessary.

The Grillburger with cheese ($4.99) is kind of like a Whopper without the broiled flavor. It includes good quality, juicy beef with green leaf lettuce, tomato, pickle and onion.

The Flamethrower Grillburger ($4.99) was really good. Jalapeno bacon, pepper jack cheese, chipotle Tabasco mayonnaise and lettuce and tomato worked well together. The bun, the lettuce, the beef, everything was a little better than at the other two restaurants.

While the Iron Grilled club and turkey sandwiches ($4.59) are hardly worth mentioning, and on the whole, the hot food selection was small, if pressed I’d probably be more likely to patronize Dairy Queen first, Burger King second and McDonald’s third for a fast food burger.

– The Mouth

mouth@coastweekend.com