What's black and white and weird all over?  McDonald's new Black and White burger set with a black-bunned beef hamburger and a white-bunned chicken burger.

We weren't sure whether these burgers were meant to be a yin-yang sign, a tribute to Michael Jackson or just a lab experiment gone wrong. But then a colleague informed us they're a play on a Chinese phrase: heibai liangdao tongchi (黑白两道通吃), which describes people who are so well-connected with both the government (that's the white side) and organized crime ("black society," as it's called in Chinese) that they can "eat from both sides." In other words, someone who has a foot in both camps.

And just why is McDonald's turning this phrase into a burger? "I think they're running out of ideas," piped the same colleague who explained the above.

Let's get to the important part, which is how these things actually taste. As far as I can tell, the black burger has a black pepper sauce with bits of onions. The white burger was harder to place, but the sauce has a spicy kick with a sweet finish. And as you can see, there are sesame seeds topping the bun of the black burger and – this is genius – black sesame seeds topping the white burger!

Mostly I'm just curious how they got that black bun so dang black. I'm not even mad; that's amazing.

If you're up for trying this, you can get it for a limited time at McDonald's. The set meal costs RMB27, but you can get the set of burgers by themselves for RMB16. There's also a set of coupons that you can use to get yourself a sneaky deal.

Meanwhile, if you want something black and white that tastes good, check out the ice cream sandwich at Nola.

Photo: Josh Ong