As I’m sure most of you already know, either because you’re a fan of the event or because your beloved NBC Thursday night lineup has been interrupted, the 2010 Winter Olympics are currently being held in Vancouver. Never one to miss a promotional opportunity, McDonald’s has introduced a new dipping sauce for their McNuggets – Sweet Chili Sauce – and they’re attempting to drum up interest in this limited time offering by tying it to the Olympics. How do these two things relate to each other, you ask? The answer: I have no goddamn clue. However, they are trying very, very hard to connect the two, and you know what happens when marketing teams try too hard, don’t you? Don’t you? If you’ve been reading this blog for any appreciable amount of time, you do. It’s called madness.

Once again, if you’ve been following JFB for a while, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve unconsciously developed a formula to my writing that goes something like this:

1. Intro paragraph, may or may not have anything to do with the product I’m reviewing.

2. Four or five paragraphs mocking the marketing of said product.

3. One, two if it’s lucky, paragraphs about how the food actually tastes.

4. Closing paragraph with summary and why you will probably hate it.

It’s not like I did this on purpose. It just sort of came to be. We humans are creatures of habit, I suppose. Well, today I’m going to break that habit. I’m going to tell you about the food first, and then I’m going to show you what McDonald’s thinks is the most effective way of getting you and I to buy it. We’re taking a train ride; it’s going to make a brief stop in Tasteville, and then it’s leaving the station and heading right to Crazy Town. Buckle up, kids; this could be a bumpy ride.

(Do trains have seat belts? I don’t think I’ve ever actually been on a train. Fuck it, trains have seat belts now. Sit down and shut up.)

First off, let me say that I had to go to McDonald’s twice, once again the victim of fast food employee incompetence. Last night I went and ordered, and asked the drive-thru speaker if they had the new Sweet Chili Sauce. “Sweet and Sour?” she replied. I wanted to sit her down right then and there and educate her about how different words mean different things. “You see, honey, ‘chili’ and ‘sour’ do not mean the same thing!” One wonders how she functions in the world, with such a debilitating learning disorder. Anyway, after I repeated the question, got the message across, and was told no, we don’t have that,I took the McNuggets off my order, discouraged.

When I drove up to the window to get my food, there was a man wearing a tie handing it to me, and seeing a tie behind the counter of a McDonald’s screams “manager”, so I asked him if he knew when they would be getting the Sweet Chili Sauce in. “We already have it,” he replied. Well, I’d already taken the nuggets off my order, and I didn’t feel like being a pain in the ass, so I just left. My discouragement transformed into a mild, frustrated rage. There’s something about getting fucked over by fast food employees that just pisses me off. If a new item comes out, they should know about it. I got even more enraged when I got home and saw the bag that my burgers (figured I’d get dinner while I was there) came in:

IT’S ON THE FUCKING BAG, MOTHERFUCKER! The sauce is right on the goddamn bag. A bag that you are surrounded by, day in and day out, that you probably handle dozens, if not hundreds, of times a day. IT IS ON THE BAG.

I made a second trip to McDonald’s today.  A different McDonald’s, of course.  There was no problem obtaining Sweet Chili Sauce this time.  The chick who took my money even gave me the sauce before I got the nuggets, informing me that the button for the sauce did not yet exist, and she wanted to make sure I got them.  That was very thoughtful of you, lady order-and-money-taker.  You should go down the street and talk to the other lady order taker.

I won’t even go into the McNuggets.  I have to imagine that 99% of people reading this have had a McNugget at some point in their lives. For the other one percent: tastes like a chicken nugget.  Mushed up chicken meat, formed into little chunks, breaded, fried.  Glad we got that out of the way.

That’s not bad photography, although I would understand if you thought that, considering my past photographic endeavors.  In real life, the sauce is much darker.

The sauce is a very deep red, and if you hold it in just the right light, you can see little red pepper flakes spread throughout the sauce, which is a good thing, since they are listed as an ingredient.  Cayenne pepper is also listed, so there’s your “spicy”.  When you get your nose up close, there’s a strong vinegar scent with what smells like a spicy barbecue sauce.  Off to a fairly good start.

I was surprised by the consistency.  It seems less like a sauce and more like a glaze.  Just trying it straight off my finger, I was very pleased with the flavor.  The sweet is what you taste first, but it’s not sweet in the way that candy is sweet; it’s that kind of sweet that goes well with savory, like sweet and sour sauce.  At first, I was a little disappointed by the spicy side of Sweet Chili Sauce, but as I ate more (still off my finger, like a savage), the heat gradually built up, plateauing at a level of heat that was just right.  As a whole, the sauce tastes sort of like a combination of orange chicken glaze and a mild barbecue sauce.  They work well together.

On a McNugget, the flavors are more muted, but they don’t disappear altogether.  You get more of the orange chicken glaze than the barbecue on the nugget, and it seems to mute the heat a little as well, but it still holds up.  I also appreciate the thickness of the sauce – no worries about sauce dripping on your nice blouse as you wolf down an unhealthy lunch right before that important meeting.  Although I imagine the number of successful businesswomen ordering chicken nuggets from McDonald’s for lunch is fairly low.

I didn’t really hold any expectations for Sweet Chili Sauce going in.  I figured it could go either way.  Fortunately, it went the right way.  I usually like to keep my sweets away from my savories, but I really enjoyed this dip.  It does live up to its claims of being sweet and spicy, which makes me think they should have gone with that instead of “Sweet Chili”.  Just seems more appropriate to me.  I would totally get this dip again the next time I order some McNuggets, but considering that this is the first time I’ve eaten McNuggets since I was probably twelve years old, I have a feeling we won’t be running into each other much in the future.  Actually, that’s pretty much a done deal, because Sweet Chili Sauce is only sticking around as long as the Olympics are, so if you want to try it, you’d better get your butt down to a McDonald’s pretty soon.  Except don’t go to McDonald’s #11427, because they employ dirty, dirty liars.

Now, here is where we arrive at Crazy Town, aka The McNuggets Village. Meant to vaguely resemble an Olympic village, different buildings offer different activities and nugget-related items, which I will break down for your pleasure.

McDonald’s Restaurant

There’s the actual McDonald’s, which explains the connection between the Olympics and Sweet Chili Sauce: “McDonald’s is bringing you the taste of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games – new Sweet Chili Sauce, the perfect blend of sweet and spicy.” This sentence is pretty amazing, because not only does it absolutely not explain the connection between Sweet Chili Sauce and the Olympics, but it also describes Sweet Chili Sauce as “sweet and spicy”. Never before have I seen a sentence that manages to offer absolutely no information whatsoever. It’s like a rich man burning a hundred dollar bill – there’s no purpose or reason to it whatsoever. It is a waste of words, space, and my time.

Athletes Dorm

Oh what the motherfuck. “How do you McNugget?” They want me to accept the word “McNugget” as a verb, now? No. No. I refuse. I can’t even bear to watch the videos of Olympian athletes, people who have worked very hard every day of their lives to excel at one athletic feat, talking about how they McNugget. My head would explode.

Victory Club

Here, you can enter a sweepstakes to win a trip to the 2012 Summer Olympics. All you have to do is answer a few questions about how Olympians, sigh, McNugget. Just go to the Athletes Club, watch the videos, and answer accordingly. I have entirely too much pride to participate in any of this nonsense.

McNuggets Stadium

This is where the wheels really come off the tracks. I don’t feel that I need to use too many words here; the pictures will say it all. I will tell you how McDonald’s explains this surreal little activity, though: “You’ll see athletes from all over the world pass it, spin it, dunk it and attack it. Get the inside scoop on the games they play – and see what it all means in the Wide World of McNuggets.” Showing all of them to you would take too long, so I just chose the ones I found particularly…interesting.

Let’s just…let’s just do this.

Junk Food Betty translation: Be a selfish bastard to your friends. Sharing does NOT mean caring, apparently.

Junk Food Betty translation: Make a heart shape with your hands to confuse and distract the person eating McNuggets in the booth next to you, then steal their last McNugget. Being an asshole isn’t just for friends; you can do it with strangers, too.

Junk Food Betty translation: What the fuck? Who does this? Who puts a McNugget on their poorly-cleaned table and then proceeds to slide it across the table, presumably over the edge, into an impossibly small tub of sauce, both of which will then tumble onto the ground? If you are doing this in a McDonald’s, you will be asked to leave.  If you are doing this at home, you’ve just stained your carpet with Sweet Chili Sauce, and your dog is now eating the McNugget.  This is not a “common act”.  Nobody does this.

Junk Food Betty translation: You fucking mooch, you already stole my last McNugget the other day, and now you want me to give you another one, after you already stuffed your face with your own 12-piece? I’ve had enough of your bullshit, buddy. Get your stuff together and get out of my house.  You will never sleep on my couch again.

Junk Food Betty translation: You fat, gluttonous fuck. That is disgusting. I can’t even finish my own lunch after watching you shove two McNuggets at a time down your gaping maw. I’m getting out of here. Feel free to make a Critical fucking Grab when I’m gone.

Future Gold Training Center

This is where you can meet the McDonald’s Champion Kids. I do not know why they are Champions. The videos of them that are presented would probably tell me why, but I don’t care. Here’s what I really care about: “They’ve come from all over the United States to experience the games, meet their hero athletes, and see the Olympic Values of Friendship, Excellence, and Respect in action.”

I sure do hope that the Champion Kids are not allowed inside McNuggets Stadium, because all that Friendship, Excellence, and Respect are going to go right out the window once they read the McNuggets translation of various sports terms. As you can see above, McNuggets believe in Begging, Gluttony, Stealing, and Unsanitary Eating Conditions. These are the Values that McNuggets believe will turn you into Champion Kids and responsible members of society in the future. God help us all.

Also, I hate hate hate inappropriate capitalization. I hate you so much, McNuggets Village.

• Score: 4 out of 5 chicken nuggets on the floor
• Price: Free, but $3.88 for the McNuggets
• Size: Two 1 oz. tubs of sauce; 6 nuggets
• Purchased at: McDonald’s store #I don’t remember because I lost the damn receipt
• Nutritional Quirks: More of a glaze than a sauce; not sure where “chili” fits in.

Note: I actually wrote the bulk of this review on Tuesday, February 16, which is when I purchased the McNuggets, but I was so overwhelmed by the website that I’m just today finishing it up.  So please note that all references of dates and times are from the 16th.

Note note: Interesting the similarities between McDonald’s Sweet Chili Sauce and KFC Sweet & Spicy Glazed Grilled Chicken, eh? I smell espionage!

Note to the third power: Phoood and The Impulsive Buy have also reviewed McDonald’s Sweet Chili Sauce. Check out their thoughts.