gimme all the maple bacon

disclaimer:  i received a gift card from mcdonald's to use for the purpose of this review/post.

so my friends over at mcdonald's contacted me awhile ago to see if i was interested in trying out their new taste crafted menu.  i love mickey d's, so it was a no-brainer.  i'd heard about it just from their PR blitz on the radio and in tv commercials, so i was somewhat familiar with the new concept.  basically, you can create your own sandwich from the various choices they're offering for buns, meat, and condiments:

what i didn't know was that they were also adding table service to their walk-in diners.  so you can walk in, place your order at the counter, and then go have a seat and wait for one of their employees to bring it to you.  i'm not entirely sure if this adds tipping to the mcdonald's dynamic, but i guess tips are always appropriate whenever service is particularly good.

with cookie season in full swing, it gets hard to make time to do dinner at home.  i mean, sure, i've got that nifty new instant pot (which i'm using all the time, by the way), but some nights i'm just done and the last thing i want to do is stand in the kitchen and make food.  we had one of those evenings last week when it was just me and the bean, and so it was the perfect time for us to visit our local mcdonald's and give it a try.  plus, it helps that it has one of the nicer, cleaner play places and so we invited my co-leader and her two kids to join us for a quick dinner out.

i whipped out my arch card to place our order:

and noticed a different graphic for the taste crafted menu placed conveniently on the counter.

i totally forgot about the table service deal and waited at the counter for our food to be ready.  oops.  old habits die hard, you know.

the bean wasn't having any of that fancy stuff, though.  she opted for her tried-and-true (well, one of them, anyway) - the filet o'fish.

but i'd opted for the maple bacon dijon with grilled chicken on an artisan roll.  i'm not usually a dijon fan, but i decided to step outside of my comfort zone and give it a shot.

it looked pretty good - especially for what you typically expect to see from mcdonald's.  and i'm happy to report that it tasted as good as it looked.  the roll was chewy and delicious, the chicken was tender and perfectly cooked, the veggies were fresh, and that mild dijon sauce added some great flavor to the sandwich.  and, well, duh - maple-smoked bacon.  need i say more?  i mean...it's bacon.  mmmmm.

being mcdonald's, it wasn't super pricey, and after grabbing a snack-sized mcflurry for the bean's dessert i'd spent well under $20 on dinner.

so i'm not saying this just because we enjoyed free mcdonald's food, but really - the taste crafted menu is definitely worth a shot.  i want to go back and try that buffalo bacon with the grilled chicken on a soft potato roll next time.

what sort of concoction would you like to try from the new taste crafted menu?  comment below with your top pic and my friend random.com and i will pick a couple of folks to receive an arch card so you can go in and give it a whirl.

you can enter a couple of different ways - leave me a comment below (make sure you give me a way to reach you!).  or head over to twitter and tweet a link to this post, tagging me (@luvbabyb) in your tweet.  then come back and leave a second comment telling me you tweeted.  make sure you do it by monday (february 15th) at 5:00pm PST - i'll post the winners the next day.

oh - sorry, international friends...US only.  don't hate me.