A couple of months ago I highlighted the … um, interesting article from CouponSherpa that looked at ’41 Ways To Eat This Year’s Calories In A Single Sitting’. Well, they’re back with another intriguing look at the food world. Read on for more!
The latest article of culinary intrigue is called “24 Secret Restaurant Menus Revealed”, and looks at special menu items that many popular chains offer … but that you won’t find on their menu.
The image above is from ‘Fat Burger’ and is called the ‘Hypocrite’ as it is a Veggie Burger topped with Bacon! I just love the irony in that one …
Here are some more examples from the list:
Chili’s
Chili – This food is the name sake of the company, so even though it has been off the menu for many years they will still make you a bowl of chili if you request it.
Wow … didn’t realize there was no chili on the menu at Chili’s!
KFC/A&W
Putine – This is a Canadian favorite that includes French fries, fried cheese curds, and gravy layered together.
Cheese curds?!
Dunkin Donuts
Turbo Hot Coffee – An extra shot of expresso in your coffee.
… because you can never have too much caffeine!
And my personal favorite:
Burger King
Suicide Burger – This is a large burger including four meat patties, four slices of cheese, bacon and special sauce.
Of course, none of these are official items, and therefore you cannot find them on any of the official ‘nutritional facts’ sites for these restaurants. Considering the ‘healthier’ BK Quad Stacker has ~1000 calories, 68 grams of fat, and 240 mg of cholesterol … I can only assume this one gets closer to the >2000 calorie Windows 7 burger that was available in Japan.
These choices seem to focus mainly on going beyond the already unhealthy ‘super size me’ portions restaurants provide, but for me the interesting thing is the ‘special hidden menu’ aspect. As the article notes, not all franchises will feature these items, but it is still a cool concept.
It makes me think back to when I was working on a research project with some folks at UPenn and had to travel to the area on occasion. One researcher was from India and was close friends with the owner of a local Indian food restaurant. We would go there for lunch, when there was normally a buffet, but would sit down and food would just arrive – nothing that was on the buffet, all custom cooked items, and the owner and cook were interested in what all of us thought of their creations. More than twenty years later I have yet to taste any Indian food that compares.
How about you? Have you ever heard of any of these items? Know of any ‘secret menu items’ at other popular restaurants? Let us know!
Source: CouponSherpa
On the poutine…can it be had at ANY KFC/A&W?? I didn’t think it could. Poutine looks awesome…..in tast and in calories! 😉
Taste I mean! ;-P
Anyway…a lot of restaurants can do these things if their employees are open to it. Menus didn’t used to be the hard fast things the appear to be today. Back in the day, if they could make it with what was on hand, then they could and then they figured out the price.
These items are likely to be only sporadically available …
But it is amazing how rigid things are now: heck, my wife will get something healthy like a veggie burger (not hypocrite!) or Caesar wrap or something, and it will come with fries, and they won’t let her substitute fresh veggies, despite offering that as a side with other choices …
The poutine is a standard menu item on A&W as well as KFC (and Burger King) locations in Canada. And Joel, the taste is fine; the calories, on the other hand…