Fast Food Watch: McDonald's Beef Rice Wrap

When McDonald's recently announced the introduction of rice dishes at its China restaurants, there was a sudden cold snap in hell and a spate of pigs flying across Beijing skies. Whereas KFC and its parent company Yum! Brands have become experts in localizing fast-food favorites (except for the miserable failure of Taco Bell in Shanghai), McDonald's have been a bit more pure in their presentation of burgers and fries. Until now.

In this first edition of our new, occasional Fast Food Watch column, we decided that it was our duty to serve the Beijing community by tasting this new concoction and reporting to our astute readership – their palates so refined that TRB Temple Restaurant won seven trophies at our 2013 Reader Restaurant Awards – on its overall deliciousness and consumability, which we're not sure is a word. Actually, I just needed to grab something quick and McDonald's was on my way back to the office, but my soon-to-be-clogged heart is in the right place.

Our selection for today is the Beef Rice Wrap, one of McDonald's new rice wraps. McDonald's does chicken, but they made their name with burgers, so if they're going to get one of these right, probably, it's beef. As the venue for this fast-food feast, I chose, appropriately, my desk.

The wrap comes in an elongated box with a FedEx "pull here" tab that opens it. Inside, the wrap is, well, wrapped in paper with the names of all of the different rice wrap varieties, which can be unnerving – their other menu items have one specific name on them. The beef rice wrap is RMB 18 by itself, RMB 22 as a set meal with a medium Coke. We chose the set meal, and we're pretty happy about that, since the Coke was the best part of the meal.

The green tortilla – we're guessing spinach? – that makes it a wrap has the same texture as that of a Taco Bell flour tortilla, so fans will be happy. Inside it's a mixture of seasoned rice and beans, beef that doesn't look quite like a third of a regular McDonald's hamburger, some sliced carrots, two tomato slices, and shredded lettuce, all slathered in some kind of hoisin variant.

Let me sum it up for you: airline food.

Next time you're not flying business class, order the beef or the pork. The beef rice wrap's rice isn't bad, but the meat and sauce combo causes the same "oh-god-what-is-this" reaction of that first bite of airline beef or pork, but is consumed anyway because 10 hours is a long time to wait until the next meal and duty-free Toblerone is too expensive. The lettuce and carrots add a tiny bit of crunch but are utterly devoid of any flavor. I didn't notice the tomato at all. Looking back, I wish I had dumped out the wrap's contents, eaten the tortilla, then eaten the rice and called it even.

In our next edition, we'll drink a seasonal Starbucks offering: the banana java chip frapucino. Or frappucino. Or frappuccino. Whatever.

Photos: Steven Schwankert