Category: Food

Winning The McLottery

September 6, 2025

Remember this? Yesterday I waltzed into a Maccas and saw this sign at the register:

I was agog, and could hardly throw my money at the manager fast enough. As everyone predicted the meal itself was a failure (he said everyone hated the weird milkshake), and he said he had ‘two cases’ of the toys ‘to get rid of’.

I bought ten, but he gave me twelve. In retrospect I was so astonished by what was happening I was a fool, and should have purchased twice as many.

One of the six still eludes me: the Ronald Macdonald tin. If I see them for sale again, I will certainly buy more.

And of course this also means I now have 26 of the wonderful postcards….

Review: McDonaldland Meal

August 12, 2025

Today the new retro-themed ‘McDonaldland Meal’ was released at (of course) McDonalds. As you’ll soon see, I had to get one.

This is one of those overpriced ($17) meals designed for adults, and of the two options (nuggets or a quarter pounder) I chose the nuggets. I won’t beat around: they were terrible and I only ate a few before tossing the rest.

But the packaging! This is a meal designed around nostalgia, and I think they’ve done a decent job. For instance here’s the bag it came in:

In addition to the nuggets (and fries, in the usual sleeve), the meal also comes with a special ‘mystery flavour’ thick shake:

It looks like bubble gum or cotton candy doesn’t it? KLS first thought it was birthday cake flavour, but quickly changed her mind. Macca’s hasn’t (yet) revealed what it is, but it’s believed to be blueberry or raspberry. Kristin said it “looked great but the taste was meh”.

The reason I bought this meal had nothing to do with the food, it was the ‘toy’ that it comes with:

You get one of these sealed boxes, which contains one of six different tins filled with goodies. Here’s the one I got:

As you can see I got Hamburglar, and while the embossed tin and stickers are great the postcards are amazing! Beautiful art, thick cardboard, rounded corners – these are the real deal, and in my opinion make the entire meal worthwhile!

So I have a conundrum. The food is terrible and Kristin doesn’t want another shake, but I really want more of these postcards. I don’t want to buy another of these, but I’d lie if I said the chance of me doing so was zero.

(Incidentally, if you buy one of these please consider sending me a postcard!)

Ramen Universes Beyond: Pokemon

August 9, 2025

It’s time to truly bend the rules with this licensed ramen review, since today’s product isn’t even ramen!

It’s a cup tteokbokki, which is a Korean sortof soup with rice cakes instead of noodles. This one is spicy flavoured. As you can see it’s Pokémon branded, and each cup contains one of 30 different Pokémon stickers.

The above shows the contents; a bag of rice cakes and a seasoning packet. To prepare, both are mixed in the cup with hot water and then the cup is microwaved. Here’s the finished product:

Of course I didn’t try this (Korean food is way too spicy for me) but KLS loves tteokbokki and said “This in the ok category of instant tteokbokki”. So it’s a good thing it came with a bonus sticker:

That’s Pokémon #906, known as Sprigatito in English, Naoha in Korean and Nyahoja in Japan. It’s a grass cat type that can mesmerize people with its pheromones!

I purchased this for KLS in NYC at a Korean grocer, and since they had two different flavors I got both. Here’s the other:

She said this one – which was plain flavour – was a little better. Here’s the sticker it came with (and how the sticker was packaged):

This sticker isn’t numbered, but is Pokémon #131, Lapras, who has the same name in English and Korean (and Laplace in Japan). This is a famous Pokémon since it’s been around for over 30 years now.

Have you tried instant tteokbokki? If not, and you see these ones in a shop, you may want to give them a go. Maybe they’re not wonderful, but you’ll get a cool sticker 🙂

Robot Claw