Fast Food Friday: Burger King's Extra Long Pulled Pork Sandwich is an Affront to Barbecue

In this semi-regular feature, The Big Lead staff will sample and review delicacies from fast food establishments, ballparks, or anywhere else that triggers thoughts and feelings.

Dearest readers, let’s start this highly-important Internet blog post about fast food working under the assumption that barbecue is awesome and potential proof the world isn’t a wholly awful, dark, cold place. We could certainly quibble over which type of barbecue — Texas, Memphis, Carolina or wherever you prefer [editor’s note: Cardillo is now on probation] — is the best, but to me all barbecue is delightful. Put a plate of it in front of me and I’ll eat it until my stomach distends from my torso, Bret Bielema style. If I could eat barbecue everyday, I would.

To that note, the idea of a quick, cost-efficient fast food barbecue place sounds appealing — in theory — even if it means I would have stains on all, instead of just some, of my shirts.

Barbecue is not meant, however, for fast food places. Burger King’s Extra Long Pulled Pork Sandwich is proof.

This is my own fault, of course. The other day at the gym I looked up and saw BK advertising its new barbecue — two for $5 no less. Naturally I made a snarky tweet about it.

Two "Extra Long" pulled pork sandwiches for $5 at BK? Tis truly a wonderful time to be alive.
— Mike Cardillo (@thatsonpoint) June 16, 2015

A couple days later, my stomach is a toxic sea of disgust and regret as I sit down to write at my laptop.

All of this could have been avoided by following my old rule of avoiding Burger King. Inherently, all fast food is gross and unhealthy, but something about BK doesn’t work with me. McDonald’s or Taco Bell, sure they’re equally appalling options, but sometimes you just want to down some McNuggets or five chicken soft tacos and feel the intoxicating buzz of a fast-food high. Everyone is different, but my stomach never calls out for anything on the Burger King menu.

Anyways as much as I’m about to shit on Burger King throughout this post, it’s worth praising the company for its value menu. For $1, you can still load up on a ton of items, including the rodeo burger, fries and about a dozen other items. On value alone, Burger King might trump its rivals, but consider it a Pyrrhic victory. It’s why instead of the two-for-$5 option, I paid for one pulled pork by itself ($3.69) and got a 10-piece nugget — a steal(?) at only $1.49. It was only about 12:20 p.m.. My stomach didn’t need an additional Big King or Big Fish or — barf — two pulled porks sitting inside it all day.

Let’s get to the carnage …

***

Pros:

* The bread roll wasn’t bad and, in an upset, contained the most flavor and texture of anything on the tray

* Driving home on the highway, I saw a sign that Ric Flair will be hosting an event at the local minor league baseball team in July. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Cons:

* This looked, tasted and felt like flavorless meat mush or paste.

* I couldn’t rightly tell if it was pork or chicken or something else entirely.

* Somehow within the sandwich there was zero barbecue flavor. Dipping it into the nuggets BBQ sauce didn’t help much.

* This is hard to do, but BK’s pulled pork was worse than the pulled pork served on seasonally at Subway. I didn’t think this was rightly possible.

* After one bite, I made the dumb decision trying to think of the literal process that went into making this monstrosity. It was not a pretty thought. I’ve seen all the “pink slime” videos and whatnot about the fast food industry and still choose to eat it on occasion. This sandwich was as close to some of sort of gross, meat-processing plant nightmare as I’ve come across.

Honestly I could keep going, but what’s the point. Kicking a fast food chain’s attempt at reasonably priced barbecue when it’s down is no fun. That said, my grandmother instilled a strong sense of “it’s a sin to waste food” in me as a child, but even with that old-school ethos in my head I couldn’t get through more then 3-4 bites without trashing this sandwich. There was nothing to be gained — nutrients, satisfaction, etc. — from putting this it into my digestive system.

There’s not much more to say here. The McRib feels sophisticated and “eating clean” by comparison.

I’m writing this in afternoon with my fingers crossed it doesn’t wreak any further havoc in a couple hours.

The things we do for blog.