McGangBang Review, Old St, LONDON N1

I'd forgotten the joys of working in an office, where you are mostly in front of a computer. The buzz of the Internet surrounds you constantly, like bugs in a rainforest, and bits of it fly at you - mostly dull, ugly, biting and and irritating, but the occasional beautiful butterfly lands on your shoulder.

This is how I felt when I read about the McGangBang. Exec summary: kids in the USA order a whole McChicken Sandwich INSIDE a Double Cheeseburger, and nickname it a McGangBang. It's popular to the point where some branches know what it is, and serve it.

I love eating at McDonalds, and I love innovation. One of my highlights of last year was going to McDonalds (Commercial Road) drive through on a tandem bike and ordering everything from the PoundSaver menu - 8 items for £8.22 (some things on the pound saver menu don't cost a pound), and asking if anyone had ever done that before. (They hadn't). I was of course inspired by my favourite thing on YouTube, MrChiCity.

Without further ado, my review of the McGangBang.

Ready and ordered. They had no idea what I was about to do.

At this point I start to feel slightly wrong. Not guilt, more physical icky-ness. Like having to touch a really big insect.

The McGangBang is assembled. Looks good, smells good.

One of the greatest joys about bad bread sandwiches is squishing it -like squishing a fishfinger sandwich made with cheap white sliced bread. The McGangBang squishes well, it holds together nicely too (unlike Big Macs, which have a remarkably low snack cohesion coefficient).

Eating: Actually pretty good. The McChicken sauce lifts the flavours out nicely and the crunch of the McChicken adds an interesting interplay of texture. the only incongruous element is the lettuce, which is mercilessly overpowered. It all physically holds together too, and weirdly, the extra bread doesn't matter too much. 8/10.

Conclusion

This burger originates from McDonalds in the US, where they have a McChicken Sandwich on the Dollar menu, so the whole thing only costs £2.16. This make a lot more sense. Next time I will try it with the Mayo Chicken on the Pound Menu.

I find it interesting to note that:

1. The greatest creativity, as ever, comes from constraints - kids who needed the most un-hungriness from the cheapest items at McDonalds created this.

2. It was first mentioned on Urban Dictionary in May 2006 - 3 years ago. We sometimes think that the Internet makes everything instantly famous, but things can take years to get noticed.