Burger 4: Wendy's Double Quarter Pounder With Cheese

Wendy's is a fast food chain, founded by Dave Thomas in 1969.  Thomas originally partnered with Colonel Sanders and helped Sanders increase revenue at all four (at the time) KFC restaurants in operation.  Among his many contributions, Thomas suggested the infamous signature chicken bucket still used today at KFC today.  He also advised that Colonel Sanders make commercial that he appear in himself (Dave Thomas did this years later with Wendy's).  A little over ten years later, Dave Thomas opened Wendy's.  



The first Wendy's restaurant was located in Columbus, Ohio.  Since then, Wendy's has grown to the third largest hamburger fast food chain with just about 7,000 restaurants (Burger King is second, and McDonald's is first).

Who is Wendy? Dave had five children, four daughters and a son.  The youngest daughter's name was Melinda Lou, who they nicknamed Wendy, and ultimately named the franchise for.  

Enough with the history.  Let's look at this meat-wad to our left...

...The Wendy's Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese.


The Beef:  The semi-original square burger patty, was cooked as I ordered it (at least it didn't taste like it was sitting in a warmer all day).  The meat was dry on the inside, and there was a nice touch of grease around the entire outside of the patty.  Still a fast-food type burger gives this a well-deserved 2 out of 4 points.

The Bun: I thought I'd get creative and order a pretzel bun.  How can you go wrong with that? Here's how...If you have ever eaten a hot pretzel that has been rotating in a warming contraption for a full day, that is exactly how this bun tasted, like an old, stale pretzel.  I even ate pieces of the bun alone to be sure of my thoughts.  As soon as it hit my tongue, the dryness and flakiness instantly dried out every drop of saliva on my tongue.  There was a very poor attempt at toasting the bun as well.  The bun receives a very well-deserved 1 out of 4 points.  

The Beef to Bun Ratio: If you look at this picture, you have two amazing looking patties hanging over the edge of all sides of the bottom bun.  The top bun, being made of pretzel dough, was very compact creating the illusion that the top bun is small, but really contained a lot more bread than imaginable.  Regardless, the ratio was still right on target for a 3 out of 4.  

Presentation:  For being a fast-food restaurant, the presentation was very well put together.  I feel as though Wendy's hires struggling unemployed art majors to construct their burgers.  Then they feel the need to get all Jackson Pollock with the ketchup.  Squirting the ketchup on the burger like they were firing a Super Soaker 8000, easily dropped this presentation from a 3, to a 2 out of 4.  

Cheese:  I think they used cheese sauce, or like a spreadable, squeezable cheese.  I need to find this out.  1 out of 3.

Sear:  Very nice sear for a fast food burger.  Nice texture and taste on the outside, and with the never frozen patty, cooked on a grill...it shows.  2 out of 3 points.

Overall Taste:  I'm going to have to give this burger a 2 out of 5 for overall taste.  While my abundance of ketchup helped to mask the gooey sauce they called cheese, and also the old, dry bun made of pretzel, this burger rates a 2 out of 5 on overall taste.  

BBSR: 13 / 27