Burger King in Johannesburg

Article published on 9 May 2014 by Peter

Variety is the spice of life- so true when talking about food. So I love food, that is no secret, and when I eat I want tasty. If I eat bad food then I feel that I am just packing on the kilos for not benefit to my taste buds.

Like every Joburger, I was really excited to when a Burger King opened in our vibrant town because it was giving us that variety. Since my first Burger King experience in the UK, it has been my fast food outlet of choice at airports and cities where I could not find decent sit down restaurants. So my first Burger King SA experience at Rivonia Road was quite the disappointment.

The restaurant was clean, there were plenty of helpful cashiers and my first crunch of their super crispy fries was heavenly but then I took a ravenous bite of my Big King XXL. WTF. Did Burger King do research into SA fast food joints and try to imitate Wimpy? Did they choose the ingredients by using a panel of "tasters" that were vegan? Did they decide to wash the burger patties so that they could be made as tasteless as possible? Where was the famous flavour that Burger King is renowned for? Where was the bacon? Where was the scrumptiousness that I long for at airport stop-overs?

Ok, so the burger was a disaster. My girlfriend ordered a Whopper that certainly was better but not by much. Then I started on the fries, of which there was a generous serving. They were crunchy, make no mistake, but they were dry. Dry like eating rice cakes. The fries were much better when they were steaming hot but once they chilled a minute or so into the catastrophic culinary experience, they were useless as food. There was Heinz Ketchup, and if dousing red stuff on your fries is your thing then fine but it did not work for me.

All in all, I am not going back. I often try a different outlet as they differ substantially, but not this time. That was really bad.