It's bigger! It's better! It's back!

The first time it came out, everybody thought it was a joke.

The TV ad of the old riceburger went this way:

A hand (Ronald's hand) tosses rice and a burger patty, then pours teriyaki sauce in the rice cooker. The hand covers the rice cooker and after a few seconds, out came... the rice burger.

"Yuck! Ang baboy!" squealed some girls in our dormitory TV room when we first saw that commercial.

Nonetheless, people went to their nearest McDonald's for an experimental taste. Some liked it (myself included). Some thought it was just plain weird. And some thought it was just a non-obvious way of copying Jollibee's immensely popular (and affordable) burger steak meal. (Interestingly, McDo came out with its own Burger Steak meal but they never highlighted it in their menu boards.)

After some time, the rice burger vanished and no one spoke about it ever again. Ever.

And then this morning, while i am on my way to a photo shoot at the Makati Cinema Square, I saw this giant standeee of the riceburger in McDo. It is now in two flavors, with sesame seeds and other seeds) and purple leaves (purple lettuce/cabbage?) pa. I tried the Cripsy Chicken one (the other one's Beef Teriyaki). Unlike before when it's just wrapped in wax paper that you'll surely mess up your hands with teriyaki sauce and the rice "buns" would "crumble", it is now placed inside a specially crafted packaging that you can use to hold the whole thing together.

I like the old sloppy messy rice burger better.

This new one's "buns" are so pressed and stuck together that it tastes like puto/biko already. Plus rice, chicken and mayo isn't really one of my favorite combinations in the world. The purple "leaves" also makes me think that I'm eating my mother's orchids.

And of course the old rice burger was cheaper. And that overrules everything and makes the old rice burger the winner.

Haha.