Fast fast food… and coffee… and stuff…

I’ve been seeing the ads for the new Iced Mocha thing from McDonalds so this morning on my breakfast excursion I decided to give it a whirl. The old Red Head Ronald and his band of goons have really done a good job lately of stepping it up from it’s old deep fried image and still managing to keep their prices lower than Jack and his corporation and the King and his burgers, but when I dropped $8.45 for breakfast this morning I started to second guess that…

I’ve tried the new drinks that have popped up at nearly every fast food joint since the whole “lets keep up with Starbucks” coffee crazy started. Burger King’s “BK Mocha Joe” is good but really just tastes like unfrozen milkshake mix. When I worked at Starbucks we would make the frappucinos by adding a mix to ice with milk and blending, the BK Mocha Joe reminds me that minus the blending.

Jack in the box is better with smoothies, even though watching them make it is enough to make your stomach turn early in the morning. Basically, from what I’ve gathered, all they really consist of is juice and ice cream. Isn’t having ice cream for breakfast not allowed? Doing that to a smoothie is just mean, it’s like putting beef in a vegan omelet.

McDonalds is the first non-coffee oriented establishment I’ve found that actually has decent coffee. I watched the man make it from my car through the drive through window and I was surprised to see he was actually DOING SOMETHING to make it. There was preparation involved. It looked like he was using an actual espresso machine, or at least a close cousin to it. And to top it off – it actually tastes good!

Sure, it probably wasn’t worth the $3 or whatever I paid for it, but it was worth paying to keep from having to drive all the way to Starbucks too, and really it does the trick. Now if only they’d start making Iced Grande Breve Carmel Macchiatos…