Posting at ZenKimchi Food Journal, Andrew Salmon warns us that Burger King’s “Angry Whopper” is, as advertised, quite angry:
The culprit was a new product available at (ahem) Burger King: The “Angry Whopper.” This was advertized as spicey, but seriously – how spicey could an American fast food product be?
The answer is in: Murderously. A few seconds after biting into this innocuous looking snack, a hellish, sulphurous smoke began to curl up to the roof of my mouth. Then it detonated deep in my gut: Napalm.
No joke – this is THE hottest damned thing I have eaten in Korea. Ever. The only thing that outranks it in my culinary experience is a lamb phaal which I unwisely endured in a curry house during my student days.
Intriguing.
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
there are no comments yet because, as you know, we can’t eat spicy food. just i think.
Had a couple in Australia last year. I found them to be mildly spicy, though my brother, a Whopper Eating Machine (WEM), said the spicyness varies from Whopper to Whopper depending on the jalapeno slices you get; and, maybe Burger King Korea is using meaner jalapenoes. Can’t wait to get myself to Ilsan and find out.
I actually had one here (US) about two weeks ago. It’s someone I would actually qualify as “spicy”, rather than “spiced”. At least as far as fast food goes. I would place it around the medium level. Perhaps the Korean version is different.
If you like spicy food, and accounts of people eating/enduring spicy food, try to catch “Man vs. Food” on the Travel Channel. I torrent it. That guy Adam Richman seems to seek out (or gets pushed into) eating the craziest spicy foods.
@4
Label me intrigued.
I am not BK fan but I am intrigued enough to try again. Spice is life.
babotaengi August 29, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Had a couple in Australia last year. I found them to be mildly spicy, though my brother, a Whopper Eating Machine (WEM), said the spicyness varies from Whopper to Whopper depending on the jalapeno slices you get; and, maybe Burger King Korea is using meaner jalapenoes. Can’t wait to get myself to Ilsan and find out.
Didn’t know that Aussie’s ate a lot of spicy foods historically. I was in LA last month and they usually use the real spicy jalapeno’s, it looked really nasty and gross, so I had to try it. My first bite I thought they put Habaneros inside, the damn burger choked me out, literally and on that day, the weather was around 38.7 degrees C. to add to my suffering.
Love it, but it sure did kick my ass. I live in Japan and I really don’t think the Japanese can handle anything that spicy. Didn’t make me “angry”, more like gasping, but it sure made me a believer!!!!
#7, not traditionally, but the last 10-15 years we’ve had a proliferation of Asian/Indian food in the big cities and people like it, especially Thai and Vietnamese. Parts of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane now resemble Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City.
I just went and took the wife out to BK to try one of these things after reading this post. All I can say is the dude at ZenKimchi must have got lucky. My ‘Angry’ Whopper was nothing more than slightly ‘irritated’, the wife’s was ‘annoyed’ at best. The thing made Kimchi seem spicy it was that poor. I was really looking forward to some proper heat.
Guess my brother was right about the variability of their “angriness” then. Maybe it would pay to ask the dude at the counter for one that’s had a particularly bad day.
At least in you guys can get a spicy burger in Korea, but in Japan, it probably wouldn’t do well as Japanese as a whole probably wouldn’t eat it, just from the size alone. Have you ever seen the burgers in Japan? They look like knee caps!!
Guess, I have to wait until…
a)get on the military base
b)wait for the next trip to Guam.
c)Pray that I might get a chance to go on a business trip to Korea.
Now I’m intrigued. I love Whoppers but have been giving this one a pass.
@11
When I was in Japan, I felt that the burgers were much heartier than their Korean counterparts. I mean, in Japanese McDonald’s I could get a Double Quarterpounder, something that I couldn’t imagine ever existing in Korea. For that matter, McDonald’s and its ilk seem to be far more popular in Japan than they are in Korea.
I had heard McDonald’s was testing the Quarter Pounder here in Korea, but have never been able to find out where. Guess it was not a hit.
Bring your own peppers and make the burger as angry as you wish. Of course the peppers will do nothing to save the grey, dried-out, flavorless beef.
I think you’re missing one of the major points of fast food there, seouldolt.
baekgom – this summer in Taipei I tried ‘Mosburger’ for the first time -which I guess is a Japanese chain. They have deep fried hamburgers, with the type of crispy covering you’d find on ‘Ton Gas’ – it was delicious.. That was a tasty burger.
I just ate two. Color me utterly underwhelmed. Wait… nope, yep, I’m not even approaching whelmed. First, in both burgers there were SFA jalapenos. Like 4 or 5 thin slices. Second, the jalapenoes weren’t at all spicy, and neither was the accompanying sauce. Third, perhaps to compensate for the lack of jalapeno slices, they have added mushrooms to the mix. Those crappy, shoot-like [paengi?] mushrooms. I can’t imagine who-tf would want those in a burger. Finally, the buger was not spicy at all. Did I already say that? I swear, if I wasn’t anticipating the taste, I wouldn’t have even noticed there were jalapenoes in the damn thing. The ones I ate in Australia were WAY spicier, and they weren’t even that spicy. I don’t usually give a second thought about the loss of 500 won, but this was not at all worth the mark up. One may as well just eat a whopper – there was no discernable difference. I wasn’t expecting the burger to deep fry me in beef lard or anything, but I was expecting SOME heat. Salmon IS on the crack, right?
Salmon is English. To my knowledge, English cuisine is not known for teh spicy.
Neither is Australian cuisine (whatever that is); but, like England, there are plenty of immigrants living and selling their native food in Australia, so I know the spicy. This was not the spicy. Not at all.
Assuming that Joe has acquired Korean-like tolerance for spiciness, I’d have to say that the spiciness of the BK Angery Burger has been dailed up in Korea vs. in the states. I had it in the states and it wasn’t all that spicy. I’d say medium like another commenter had said.
I said I had just eaten two of them in Korea (Ilsan). They were not even remotely spicy (okay, they were, but very, very remotely). I don’t think anyone who dislikes spicy food would have any trouble putting one of these away. In fact, the two I ate in Australia were MUCH spicier, in that they did in fact qualify as spicy food.
Perhaps I misunderstood what BK Korea meant when they called it an angry whopper. I thought the burger was supposed to be angry, not me. I think the name should be changed to the aggrovating whopper.
Trust me you guys, I live in Japan for about 10 years and their burgers are squat in general compared to what they have in Korea and as for “MosBurger”, it is waaaay to over-priced, the beef patties are the size of a knee cap and it just isn’t worth spending 8 bucks! Also, most Japanese don’t even know what “onion rings” are…ain’t that a bitch! So, in that regard, I’d gladly trade places. For a guy that grew up eating spicy food, Japan is most definitely NOT the place to be! All my J-friends complain about my cooking, they complain too hot(Just a dash of tabasco is too much)My wife tried the BK angry burger and the first thing she said was, “too big, what kind of human can eat that much at one time?” the second was after eating the burger, her mouth was on fire for almost 30 min.
Trust me, any spice is better than NO spice!
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