Katie Mach / Tasting Table Add Tasting Table on Google: Preferred Source Google Discover Red Sox versus the Yankees. Coke versus Pepsi. Edison versus Tesla. Whatever the field, nothing beats a rivalry because it pushes both sides to excel. The competitive world of fast food restaurants is no exception, and Burger King versus McDonald's may be one of the best-known. The Egg McMuffin came on the scene in 1972, and a national McDonald's breakfast menu followed in 1977. It was one of the very first national fast food breakfast menus. In response, Burger King released an almost identical menu in 1979. To differentiate itself, however, in 1983 it released the Croissan'wich, a croissant egg sandwich that remains its signature breakfast item to this day.
So after all these years of fierce competition, it's time for the breakfast sandwich gauntlet. I've never had a breakfast sandwich from either establishment — I know, I know — making me the perfect candidate for an unbiased evaluation. I got breakfast sandwiches of all kinds from both McDonald's and Burger King and got to tasting. I wanted to see which fast food giant had the most to offer in terms of flavor, value, and variety. In the end, only one was truly worth waking up early for.
Katie Mach / Tasting Table In comparing the two chains' breakfast sandwich offerings, I was immediately faced with a dilemma: Almost every breakfast sandwich from Burger King's regular breakfast menu is a Croissan'wich, meaning that the only variation between the sandwiches I tried would be the choice of meat. So I paired each sandwich with a McDonald's breakfast sandwich that I thought worked best as a comparable option.
I evaluated each sandwich individually based on flavor, texture, ingredient ratio, and general enjoyability. After tasting each sandwich, I asked whether I'd have it again, since I consider reliability and repeatability key concerns for a fast-food menu. I looked at each chain's breakfast sandwich offerings holistically. I considered how the quality of the individual menu items contributed to an overall picture. I also considered the variety of offerings from both chains and how reliably that variety could meet a given customer's needs.
Katie Mach / Tasting Table As soon as I unwrapped this, I had a bad feeling. It wasn't necessarily its sadly crushed appearance that had me nervous; it had been packed up with other sandwiches, so some of that was to be expected. No, it was the biscuit's strangely dark color and thinness. Still, surely everyone can agree that if appearance were everything, fast food joints would be out of business.
Unfortunately, in this case, my instincts were right. The word I would use to describe the experience of eating this sandwich is "punishing." The bacon was almost flavorless, flabby yet dry. And that dryness was nothing compared to the moisture-sucking dryness of this biscuit. It, too, had very little flavor, with none of the rich butteriness that a biscuit should have. It certainly lacked a biscuit's requisite tenderness; this thing was about as tender as a saltine. No amount of cheese could have brought enough moisture back to this bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit, though there should definitely have been more.
I made sure not to look into it until I'd done my own tasting, but sure enough, it ranked last in our Burger King breakfast item ranking. It's an exceptionally bland sandwich, and it was hard to eat without a cup of water. Never again.
Katie Mach / Tasting Table After my harrowing Burger King biscuit experience, the McDonald's version was a sight for sore eyes. The eggs looked fluffy, the bacon looked crispy, and the biscuit was golden and practically towered over its Burger King counterpart. All promising stuff.
