McDonald's Bacon Clubhouse

Various Locations

Yes, it’s another review about fast food!

Earlier this year, McDonald’s came out with their new Bacon Clubhouse, which features applewood smoked bacon and their special Bic Mac sauce.

Under the sandwich box lid, you can find their mission statement for the sandwich:

Discover What You Love: With ingredients like thick cut applewood smoked bacon, special sauce & caramelized onions, all mingling on a soft & warm artisanal roll.

 

You can have it with either a beef or chicken (grilled or crispy).

 

 

Over the past month, I have tried all three versions the sandwich.

The Grilled Chicken Clubhouse:

 

The Crispy Chicken Clubhouse:

 

The Burger Clubhouse:

 

Ranking:

#1: Grilled chicken. The chicken was juicy and moist. And the special sauce with the chicken was a surprisingly good combination.

#2: Burger. Decent-sized burger, but a bit too much special sauce.

#3: Crispy chicken.  Found the chicken to be a bit dry and the crispy skin was soggy. Yuck!

 

My overall comments:

I found it a bit hard to eat with my hands. It’s a bit messy as the sauce kept dripping out. I needed to plate it and then eat it with a knife and a fork. The artisanal bun is a bit sweet, but tasty and definitely preferable to the thin sesame seed bun that you would find on a Big Mac.  And although I do remember loving the McDonald’s special sauce on the Big Mac as a kid, I found it a bit much on this sandwich. And at $4.99 for the clubhouse sandwich, if I have a craving for the sauce, I’d stick with the lower-priced Big Mac.

The Red Cat

227 Tenth Avenue

(between 24th and 23rd Streets)

A friend called at the last minute about getting together for a Saturday brunch.

Had always wanted to try the brunch at The Red Cat, so decided this would be a good opportunity to go as it is not one of those Chelsea “brunch hotspots” where you go for bottomless drink specials, and therefore a good place to go if you’re looking for someplace where you can have a long, civilized chat with a friend.

Helpful Hint: Do make a reservation. I believe it was because I made a reservation that I was seated at a corner booth.

The dining room ambience is bright and open and airy, and I loved the lanterns on the ceiling. Must be lovely at night!

 

For our cocktails, my friend had ordered the pineapple ginger fizz (you might be able to see a bit of in the photo below--it is the yellow drink on the left), which she was not a fan of—it tasted like medicine to me. Luckily, I had ordered the fragola—macerated strawberries with sparkling wine. So I gave her my drink and our waiter kindly did not charge her for the ginger fizz. Classy!

I ordered a glass of the Sauvignon Blanc de Sant-Bris 2012. You know you’re in a classy brunch joint when you order a glass of wine and your waiter arrives with the bottle so that you may taste it before he pours you the entire glass. I confess that I did end up saying no to a glass of red to accompany dessert, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

 

The Sauvignon Blanc was perfect for a hot, humid summer day. Citrusy, light and crispy, and absolutely refreshing!

 

For appetizers we ordered their signature appetizer dish—light tempura of green beans. My friend found them rather tasteless and she had to add salt (which they have in a small dish on the table so that the customer could flavor their dish to their personal taste), but I found it to be perfect paired with a honey-mustard dipping sauce. It was sort of like eating fried edamame. Sadly my photo is a bit out-of-focus, but thought I would include anyway.

We also ordered a side of their sautéed corn (another touted customer favorite), which was really good and buttery!

As well as a side of herbed fries, which came with a Dijon mustard-type dipping sauce. With that we definitely satisfied our salt fix!

We both ordered the schmaltz fried egg for our entrée, which was served atop a potato pancake, brisket, spinach, and maple jus. Everything tasted super fresh and the fried egg was cooked perfectly.

Loved mixing in the yolk with the potato pancake. Awesome!

Only complaint is that the maple jus made the dish a bit too sweet for my liking.
 

For dessert we ordered the peach crostada with blueberry ice cream and ginger sauce. Lovely presentation, and the perfect light and flaky dessert to have on a summer afternoon.

 

As I had earlier mentioned, the red wine that I originally chose to accompany our dessert, I ended up rejecting (so the waiter offering a tasting really does pay off!). Instead, after hearing that I wanted a non-tannic wine, our waiter suggested that I try the Pinot Noir from the Becker Estate. Smooth!

 

Final Thoughts

It is a definitely a dining experience. So it’s a perfect place to go to if you’re looking for someplace special to catch up with a friend you don’t normally see of if you’re celebrating a special event. But it is a bit pricey to go on a regular basis.

Spice (Chelsea Location)

263 Eighth Avenue

(corner of 22nd Street)

Tasty and affordable lunch special!

Spice has various locations, but I am writing specifically about the one indicated at the above address.

For an appetizer and an entrée, the pricing varies from $8 to $10 depending upon selection. As opposed to many lunch specials, the options are quite varied.

For our appetizers, we ordered the pot stickers—dumplings wrapped in house skin with chicken, scallion with sour ponzu sauce. Salty goodness!

And the signature shrimp fritters—ground shrimp and chicken with honey chili sauce.

 

Warning! High-heat alert. Needs to cool down before you make the mistake of popping it in your mouth.

 

For our entrees, we chose the Hawaiian ginger and pineapple dish with chicken. Glad we tried it, but wouldn’t order again as there wasn’t anything that I would consider a standout.

 

One dish that I would order again and again would be the seafood rice bowl. It comes with scallops, shrimps, squid, mussels, bamboo shoot, scallion, mushroom, and Thai gravy sauce all over jasmine rice. All of the seafood is cooked to perfection and this is a meal that you can order for lunch, and then finish for dinner as the portion is that generous. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

The other highlight of the meal, were the non-alcoholic drink specials for $4. I ordered the Pink Lady with Pearls (image on the left), which tasted like candy. My friend ordered the Iced Chrysanthemum Tea (which brought back childhood memories of my mom making me chrysanthemum tea whenever I had a cold sore—not only was it supposedly good for you, but it was like drinking honey!).

Pros:

Big, open space with booth seating available.

Nice, large restroom.

Attentive service.

Cons:

Wish they offered dinner special pricing.

Final Thoughts

Will definitely go back for their seafood rice bowl lunch special, and to try their other specialty lunch drinks.

As  a side note:

I did return a few days later to try their takeout. I ordered the duck wrap appetizer. (Note to self: don’t every order again for takeout as it turns into mess in the container by the time you get it home!)

 

And for the entrée, I went for the black noodles (broad rice noodle with egg and broccoli) with tofu. They also were kind enough to lightly fry the tofu for me, as it is usually served soft. The black noodle is basically chow fun, but it seemed sweetened with what tasted like duck sauce. Would order again, but it definitely does not measure up to the seafood rice bowl!