Carl's Jr. -- Freaking Everywhere

Seriously, Carl's Jr has saturated the market
You can find it EVERYWHERE.  
I guess it's called Hardees in certain parts of  the country.
Carl's Jr Website

The Original Six Dollar Burger® they promised

The Original Six Dollar Burger® they delivered

This stop at Carl's Jr., my first........and last, was inevitable since this chain really pimps the hell out of its burger fare on TV, 24/7, and I live in California. In response to the marketing onslaught, Happy Meal (the youngest BurgerBuster) was swayed by the call of the Bacon Western Cheeseburger.....so kudos to their ad agency--the kid really made a stink about wanting one.  I got one of the Six Dollar Burgers--The Original Six Dollar Burger® for about $4 bucks.  I ordered it plain so that I could review it BurgerBusters-style--naked.

The Burger Breakdown...

The 6 Dollar Burger was about a 1/3 pound affair, and it was not the worst looking cheeseburger that I have encountered.  HOWEVER, it looked NOTHING like the burger on the menu board or the advertising.

The Beef:  The menu board made the claim of 100% Angus beef.  Sure, why not?  It was hard to tell what it was based on the awful preparation, hold time, and spice blend. You can't spell "Angus" with out "Anus."

Hey, look!! You can friend/like crappy, precooked burgers on FaceBook

The Sear: Meh, it was sort of there, but the burger had been stored and reheated so the original sear was wrecked with steam from the reheating process...sigh.  It was weird--the sear on the edges was epic, but that's where it stopped--too bad.

The Preparation: Flat, preformed patties, which looked nothing like the juicy, thick, burger porn on the menu board. The speed at which the burgers came out clearly indicated that the patties were precooked, and they were just in the cheese melting business at Carl's Jr.locations, and the cooking occurs somewhere else or, at the very least, a long time before I placed my order. The burger meat came out Well Done and crumbly.

The Seasoning: LOTS of it. Whatever blend of seasoning that they worked into the patty simply overpowered the beef flavor. The seasoning took over the entire thing, and the seasoning was not all that amazing.  I Imagine that this was to mask some really bland beef, since not a hint of beef flavor was present.

The Cheese: Nicely melted American.  American cheese is just so reliable, and Carl's Jr. did not f*ck that part up.  Like I said, they were in the cheese melting business.  I may put that on my resume---Cheese Melter.


The Bun:  A big, fresh, moist, seeded, standard, hamburger bun. The bun was just barely toasted, and it also appeared to be reheated, so there was no interesting texture or contrast with the burger patty.

Meat to Bun Ratio: It was actually exactly right, and this was one of those cases where the bun provided moisture to fill in for the dry beef.

OK, the Carl's Jr. box has been checked, and it's pretty much what one might have expected.  It was an OK fast food burger, but was not the sort of thing that I would eat twice.  For 5 bucks I could have had something cooked fresh without 54 grams of fat.

Burger Review : Whatever. This would have been OK had they cooked the burger to order and not over-seasoned it.  Then again, if my Aunt had balls, she'd be my Uncle.


Rating...1 Bite
This would have gotten 2 bites for the bun and cheese, but the the precooked, over-spiced beef was unforgivable.