S M Ong: Salty over McDonald’s Salted Egg Yolk Loaded Fries

There's a saying: One man's salted egg yolk loaded fries is another man's dead lizard in a pack of Irvins salted egg fish skin.

That has never been more true than last week, when McDonald's introduced its Salted Egg Yolk Loaded Fries.

I enjoyed the fries, but for many others, they might as well have eaten a lizard.

And it was mostly the latter group that swamped the comments section on the McDonald's Facebook page.

A sample rant: "McDonald!!!!!! You call this salted egg?!!! Or do you mean SALTED FISH?!!!!! Not a single bit of salted egg taste!!! It tasted like salted fish instead!!!!!! It tasted sour and salty at the same time? It's damn gross can!??!! Super duper disappointing!!!"

I think the planet ran out of exclamation points after that comment.

Another compared the fries unfavourably to drain water: "Remember that time we caught a tilapia and the water from the longkang went in my mouth? Yeah after eating this I think the longkang water taste better."

The most on-trend comment: "Food review: McDonald's salted egg yolk loaded fries tasted like YouTube rewind 2018."

The most meta comment: "Muahahaha... reading all these comments tastes much better than the food itself."

I was taken aback by how angry some of the posts are. It's almost as if McDonald's killed their dog in its pet boarding facility or something.

That people paid over $4 for the Salted Egg Yolk Loaded Fries (a la carte) probably didn't help.

It's more expensive than the Golden Salted Egg Milk Foam Tea from Gong Cha but cheaper than the Salted Egg Lava Brown Sugar Pearl Fresh Milk from Liho.

Yes, salted egg is on everything now. But not lizard.

Still, some who ate the McDonald's Salted Egg Yolk Loaded Fries claimed the food made them nauseous.

One wrote: "Just had this 10 mins ago at AMK branch in AMK gardens. I vomited at the carpark outside. Feeling sick after eating this."

McDonald's actually replied to the comment: "Thanks for highlighting this to us and we're sorry to hear about your experience. Could you please share with us via private message your contact number and e-mail address? We'd like to look into this and get in touch."

Another person just compared it to puke: "Is it supposed to smell and taste like vomit?"

KING VERSUS CLOWN

Not passing up a chance to throw rocks at a rival drowning in salted egg yolk sauce, Burger King also joined in the comments: "We know, the clown did it again. Yet another blunder. Here at Burger King, we never mess with our fries. That is why you should totally get our Cheesy Fries for only $2.50."

To which someone responded: "Burger King Singapore comment totally uncalled for, tasteless n only jeopardizing ur reputation no matter how bad the sauce is. It is alright for consumers to express their discontentment but not u, commenting bluntly on ur competitor's page."

But another commentator defended BK: "This happens all the time between the fast food outlets in the US though. Carl's Junior will poke at BK or McDonald's, Jack in the Box will poke at Carl's and so on. It's quite funny when they do it right."

Surprisingly, the biggest winner in the McDonald's Facebook fries fracas is not the King but the Colonel, who stayed out of the fray, thanks to customers' posts like this: "Ordered KFC cheese fries and it tastes sssoooo good!! just to counter back the horrible Mcd salted egg fries."

Another winner is McDonald's itself because one thing the comments also highlight is how much people really miss the restaurant chain's usual festive offering this time of year: "Cancel all that and just BRING OUT THE PROSPERITY BURGER & CURLY FRIES EARLY. No need to wait for Chinese New Year."

To bring it full circle, the most ironic comment may be this: "Please give me back my money, Mcdonalds!!! If you don't know the real taste of salted egg yolk, go and buy a packet of Irvins salted egg and know the real taste of salted egg!!!"

But perhaps this final comment best explains why people are so salty over McDonald's Salted Egg Yolk Loaded Fries: "Secret ingredient not there... no gecko taste.. no wonder everybody is so pissed off.. haha."