Love It Or Hate It, The McRib Is Back

For the first time since 1994, the McRib is being sold nationally. This is a sandwich that is primed and ready to stain your white shirt, destroy your taste buds—and make you wish you had ordered it without pickles. Nevertheless, the McRib is back.

According to the McDonald's website, the McRib is a "legendary" menu item for the world-famous franchise, with a cult following that led thousands of people on blogs and Facebook to campaign for the return of the sandwich (it was discontinued in 1994). The McRib is not a drive-thru item, unless your car is covered in plastic seat covers. The BBQ sauce on the McRib drips faster than you can imagine; McDonald's didn't just cover the McRib in BBQ sauce, they destroyed it with BBQ sauce.

Just imagine the McRib as the Earth, and the BBQ sauce as a meteor the size of Jupiter. Then imagine if that meteor were to blast the Earth and eclipse it in BBQ sauce, followed by about a thousand more BBQ meteors the size of Ireland. That's why you won't run out of BBQ sauce while eating the McRib.

Looking past this BBQ Armageddon scenario, the sauce is quite delicious—tangy, sweet and complimentary to the piquant onions. I was expecting the sauce to be similar to the BBQ sauce served with McDonald's famous chicken nuggets (which has a more bold taste), but the McRib impressed me with a zesty, tangy and delightful sauce.

During your McRib feast, you may find yourself only tasting onions and BBQ sauce, because both are overpowering. The same goes for the pickles.

The pickles are about as strong as they can get, and they even overpower the Earth-eclipsing BBQ sauce. Even if you like pickles, you may want to order your McRib without them or take them off yourself (and leave just one slice to get your pickle fix). As for the meat on the McRib, it is a boneless slab of meat that is made of who knows what. In fact, on the McDonald's website, the ingredients for the pork patty were simply listed as: "pork, water, salt, dextrose and preservatives." In a 1995 article in Chicago Magazine, University of Nebraska Professor Robert Mandigo described the patty as a "restructured meat product" that includes the heart, tripe and "scalded stomach" of a pig.

While that does sound appetizing, the pork patty is tasteless and acts more like filler—rather than a savory piece of barbecued pork.

While eating the McRib, you may have a problem getting all the ingredients to make one cohesive item. In one bite, you will taste BBQ sauce and onions, the next bite just pickles, the bite after that, just BBQ sauce. And when you finally finish, you will be left asking yourself if there was any meat in the legendary McRib. You will also have to wipe BBQ sauce off your face, hands, shirt (and everything within 10 feet of you), which will be more satisfying than actually eating the McRib.

Clocking in at 500 calories, the McRib is statistically healthier than the world famous Big Mac, but fails the capture a signature taste of its own. While the McRib is fun to talk about, I suggest you should stick to a "Royale with Cheese."