While I have been trying to avoid all of those places for the same reasons, none of them were even a real option compared to the almighty golden arches. Outside of a hangover, where McDonalds cheeseburgers and a Coke are the thing I crave most, I don’t even really think about McDonald’s as an option to get something satisfying and delicious. So what is it about a stressful situation that drives me right into the loving arms of Ronald and friends?

What is the connection between fast food and comfort? Studies have shown that the same chemical processes in our bodies that lead to drug addiction, can be triggered by food, notably high fat, high salt/sugar foods.  Eating these foods can release dopamine and dopamine can induce reward seeking behavior. Once the association between high fat, high calorie foods and pleasure is made, it can be a hard habit to kick. Unfortunately just like continued drug use, when your body creates dopamine more often, the dopamine receptors in your body can get burned out from over use, which means it takes more dopamine (more food) to get the same reaction. Addiction similarities aside, it offers an explanation for the association between fast food and happiness, however brief that happiness may be.

Similar research shows that sleep deprivation and junk food can go hand in hand. The quick bursts of happiness produced by high fat foods can push you through a period of exhaustion, again reinforcing the connection between those foods and positive results. Considering how stressful exhaustion itself can be, it’s no wonder we crave foods that are bad for us when we are over tired.

As far as my own personal association between McDonalds and comfort goes, that is just my childhood. Burger King was around but never seemed to be in the right location for those times when fast food was the order of the day. I have such fond memories of McDonalds as a kid that even today, when I know a Shamrock shake would be enough to make me gag, I still have happy feelings when I think about them.  McDonalds breakfasts in particular hold a special place in my brain. An egg McMuffin, a crispy football of hash browns and a raspberry danish were a little slice of heaven. Does anyone else remember when McDonalds danishes got impaled on a device that looked like an iron maiden? Heated metal spikes were jammed into the bottom of the danish, making the whole thing uniformly hot and delicious without melting all of the icing off.  It was pretty magical to a young, plump lad.

Now it all makes sense, in a moment of stress, a lifetime of little bites of happiness brings  me right back to the place where it all began. And with that, I can forgive myself for enjoying it.

How about you, what is your go to junk food of choice when times get tough?

But while McDonald’s is at the pinnacle of the fast food world, they do some imitating of their own. For example, their McCafe line of beverages is a clear attempt to steal some customers from Starbucks; same goes for their recent restaurant renovations. Another example is their Southern Style chicken sandwiches, which are an obvious rip-off of Chick-Fil-A, right down to the pickle.

With McDonald’s food my opinion is generally that it’s ‘kinda good.’ Not all of their products are going to wow you, but they’re at fair prices, and they’re not turrible. Add the fact that there is seemingly a McDonald’s within every square mile in America and you have the top grossing restaurant chain in the country.

So that brings us to McDonald’s latest attempt at recreating a popular item in the fast food world: Chicken McBites.

Rolled out nationally last month, Chicken McBites are McDonald’s version of popcorn chicken, made famous by chains like KFC, Popeye’s, Sonic, and Arby’s. They come in three sizes: Snack size ($1.99), Regular ($2.99), and Shareable ($4.99). McDonald’s describes them as such:

Ready Steady Pop!  Bite through the satisfying crunch of poppable pieces of chicken made with premium breast meat.  They’re lightly breaded with a home-style flavor.  With the handy holder for your favorite sauce, one dip and you’ll experience the perfect tasting snack and a delicious new way to love chicken.

My initial reaction: they’re probably kinda good. I like chicken and I like dipping things, so I don’t see how it could go wrong.

I first heard of McBites quite a while ago and was kind of disappointed that they hadn’t yet been released in my area, so I was surprised when one day I rolled through to get my usual 2 McChickens and saw a promotional poster for McBites. I promptly ordered the regular size with ranch dip. At $2.99, it’s a pretty good value. I would estimate you’re getting  about 30 bites of chicken. The box also comes with a handy sauce holder.

But the real question is, how do they taste?!

My initial reaction was confirmed: they are indeed kinda good. They are nice and crunchy, although the breading does not have much flavor; just a bit of black pepper and maybe some salt. There really isn’t much chicken flavor either, which you can attribute to the lack of chicken.

As for the texture of the chicken, it doesn’t have the same weird sponginess of McNuggets, but it is also nowhere near as “real” as Chicken Selects.

The claims of ‘light breading’ are unfounded; I would say almost every McBite has more breading than chicken. They’re also quite dry and would be hard to eat without sauce. When I got to the bottom of the box there were a handful of crunchy bread pieces that were completely void of chicken. They were extremely dry, but once I covered them in ranch I didn’t care one bit.

When eating McBites, the sauce is very important because it’s really the only source of flavor. If you don’t like sauce you will not like McBites. I have eaten McBites about 4 times now, and tried them with different sauces every time.

Once I was feeling extra gluttonous and ordered the Shareable size. Do you ever order so much food that you feel like you have to pretend you’re not the only person in the car or else the employee will judge you? “Hey, person in the back seat, do you want anything? No, you just want to share? OK.” You haven’t done that? Me either.

Anyway, Ranch was my favorite sauce, because I love ranch. Chipotle BBQ comes in second, because it has a very good smoky flavor. Next comes Sweet n’ Sour, because salty and sweet is a great combination, although it should just be called Sweet, because there is no sour. Then Tangy BBQ; it’s definitely tangy but not great overall flavor. Honey Mustard comes in last, but I hate honey mustard so my opinion is invalid. But McBites are really just a new way for me to get Ranch into my mouth.

Overall, I give McDonald’s a C+ on McBites. They kind of half-assed this one, but luckily for them they can afford to do it because people like me will say they’re “kinda good,” and buy them because they’re cheap and McDonald’s is close-by.

For me, the main draw to McBites is the price. For $1.99, you get a nice snack; for $2.99 a meal (along with fries of course); and for $4.99, more McBites than you can eat by yourself. The other thing they’ve got going for them is this website, which is awesome. Dude reeeeeally loves McBites.

But if I’m craving popcorn chicken I still prefer KFC’s rendition, because they have chicken, and flavor (eleven herbs and spices, to be exact). If I’m at McDonald’s and craving chicken, I’ll still go with the McChicken or McNuggets.

Check back next Friday for my review of Taco Bell’s new breakfast menu!

If there is one thing I can appreciate, it is dedication to the craft of food preparation. Certainly the taste of food is the most important thing, but when combined with the extra layer of attentive detail, the experience can really be inspiring.

One of the reasons I love sushi is because it often combines these two qualities: taste and attention to presentation.

Therefore, I am especially excited about a movie coming out next month called Jiro Dreams of Sushi, about the world’s best sushi chef.

The focus of the movie is 85-year-old Jiro Ono, who runs a tiny counter in a Tokyo subway station. How word got out on him, I will never know. What I do know is that this man takes his work to a whole other level.

The movie comes out in March, and I will be there… then shortly thereafter, a So Good field trip to Tokyo – because I’ll go that far for my readers.

The trailer:

H/t to Tasting Table for the tip and to Eater for the pic.

Whoa, what just happened? What’s coming in the next bite? Will it be crunchy, soupy, creamy, cheesy – you don’t even know! See, now you have a truly wild soup experience going on.

How do you amp up your soup eating, So Good readers? Do you toss some oyster crackers down? Do you whip out some saltines like it’s nothing? Do you shred some cheese like you just don’t care? Or are you old school, eating your soup pure thinking these noobs just don’t even know? Vote for your favorite soup topping below and explain your choice in the comments.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

As you sit down to a table full of wings, chips, burgers and dips this SuperBowl Sunday, imagine being able to devour truck loads of these delicious items as a profession. Glamor, prestige & unlimited wet naps could be yours right?

Meet Crazy Legs Conti;  a man with one lofty goal in life. His dream? To one day become the epitome of guilt free gluttony by ruling the world of competitive eating circuits in the Good Old U S of A.

Years ago when the Fox network was starved for ratings (pun intended) and didn’t have twenty nights of American Idol programming, they would slap just about anything on the air. This was a magic time for lowest common denominator programming as “When Animals Attack”, “When Good Pets Go Bad” and “Man VS. Beast” flourished.

One of the last straws to break the good will camels back via this genre onslaught for Fox was the Glutton Bowl. A reality game show sanctioned  by the International Federation of Competitive Eating.  Let’s be honest here; any organization that has a soft serve cone as part of their official crest is too legit to quit.

Each episode was bulging with professional eaters being challenged to down whatever was placed in front of them. Butter. Miracle Whip, Vienna Sausages, Hobos.

Ok, ok I kid; there weren’t any competitions that involved Vienna Sausages.

While the Glutton Bowl only lasted as a two hour marathon of excess one classy night, mostly for concern that a regular series would result in the majority of repeat contestants dying from blocked arteries, the good old Yankee tradition of eating ones self to death carried forward with unwavering enthusiasm.

Crazy Legs’ journey to become a spokesperson for the world of competitive eating is not a pretty one my friends. That being said, it’s hard not to like this amiable scarfer and his die hard,  East meets West philosophy as it applies to the honed craft of consuming mass quantities of food in horrifyingly short amounts of time. He wields the same passion of any other seasoned athlete, who can inhale fourteen dozen oysters in under ten minutes.

You’ll feel little guilt as you cheer Conti on in his quest as he possesses a superhuman kind of freakish Jughead metabolism that keeps him comfortably away from obesity. A trait that the majority of champion human Hoovers seem to be blessed with.

Just to give you a better idea of what kind of sweet cash you can make with such a lucrative career path,  Crazy Legs makes ends meet by washing windows, posing nude for art classes and sharing a 20 square foot apartment with a surly Art student who seems to semi tolerate his non-stop binging practice sessions.

Travel with Conti to every backwoods, blue collar, get stabbed in an alleyway eating event as he crisscrosses the Country looking to build his reputation at regional events. His eye on the prize? First place at the Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest. The culmination of the contests of speed and minimal chewing build to an epic showdown between Crazy Legs & his only true competition; 112 pound Champ Takeru Kobayash.

Kobayashi can eat one hotdog every 12 seconds with a patented double break and water soak approach. Once properly drenched in liquid, it’s argued if he actually chews the hot-dog but instead swallows them whole much like a boa constrictor. However a bit faster and with far less grace. In fact, watching a long line of grown, sweaty men stuff themselves silly with wet buns and tube steak is sometimes hard to watch.

Does Crazy Legs stand a chance?

A thoroughly enjoyable documentary that allows you a very unglamorous at times, inside look at the world of competitive eating. Crazy Legs deliciously enthusiastic passion for what he considers a legitimate sport makes for a fascinating view. It’ll leave you craving more.

Hot Dogs? Not so much.