Tio Wally Eats America: McDonald’s Sausage Breakfast Burrito

I’m happy to have Tio Wally (long-time Me So Hungry reader) aboard to send in his eating adventures from across America. Here he is in Springville, Utah.

Greetings from Springville, Utah
N 40° 11.173’  W 111° 36.661’  Elev. 4561 ft.

If you sail the Interstates for a living, eating fast food is an inevitability. Eventually you will be tired enough or hungry enough or it will be the only thing available or whatever. It’s going to happen. While I avoid fast food as much as possible, sometimes there are actually good things to be had, occasionally at a reasonable price.

Here’s another example:

I often make fun of McDonald’s, usually by calling it McDouche’s or making references to its “evil clown” or some such. Why? Two reasons: Its McRestaurants are frighteningly ubiquitous — Q: How do you locate a McDonald’s? A: Throw a rock. — and it’s just so McDamn McEasy.

But even Ronald’s McMafia does some things right, like … slowly KILL YOU! Don’t believe me? Watch Morgan Spurlock’s disturbing and nauseating documentary “Super Size Me” to remove all doubt.

It also does a few other, less Dangerous-To-Your-Health things right. One of them is Big Mac Sauce. I’m lovin it!™ While I’m not really a fan of the egregiously overpriced Big Mac sandwich, the sauce is another story. I have been know to buy the $1 McDouble and have them add Big Mac Sauce even though they charge (20¢-35¢) extra for it. Freakin’ clowns!

Another is its McCafe McRegular McCoffee. I find McDouche’s, er, McDonald’s coffee to be quite consistently good. In fact, I think it’s much better than Starbucks, and the most expensive ones cost less-than half the price. And while it isn’t Dunkin’ Donuts good, it’s a hell of a lot less risky than most any other place you might visit.

(Remember: Landing the yacht can be a huge hassle and very time-consuming, and that’s when you can find space. Getting crappy coffee out of the deal can make for a very, very, very long, sad voyage to the next port of call.)

The McClown’s McCoffee pricing can be kind of strange though. At some places McCoffee is $1 regardless of size. Other McRestaurants will charge as much as $1.79 for a large. What’s up with that, Ron? It’s the McSame McFreakin’ McCoffee.

However I have a way around McDonald’s seemingly arbitrary McPricing: If it’s more than a buck for a large I order two senior (small) coffees. But this method, too, can be fascinating, but only if it doesn’t backfire completely. For example, the McDonald’s in Ottawa, Kansas charges only a quarter — 25¢! — for a senior McCoffee; some other McRestaurant somewhere once charged me 89¢ each for senior McCoffees which turned out to be more than the cost of a large. Freakin’ clowns!

But by far the best value from Ray Kroc’s McClown McWorld is its Sausage Breakfast Burrito. They’re made with scrambled egg, cheese, sausage, and red and green bell pepper, all wrapped in a flour tortilla. Throw a little of their Hot Picante Sauce on it — which is surprisingly good — and you’ve got a pretty decent little low-cost food tube.

While the burritos are uniformly priced at $1 they can be inconsistent filling-wise; they are all made in-house which explains the discrepancies. Still, they are all good.

But surely the best thing about McDonald’s Sausage Breakfast Burrito is that it’s easy to hold as you hurtle a 40-ton land yacht through a sea of heavy traffic. (“Ahoy, A-holes, move along! Can’t you see I’m trying to eat here?! You freakin’ clowns!!!!”)

And so we roll.

McDonald’s, nationwide

Tio Wally pilots the 75-foot, 40-ton(max) land yacht SS Me So Hungry. He reports on road food from around the country whenever parking and InterTube connections permit.