If you watch any of the cable or DTV sports stations, you’ve no doubt seen a billion of the same commercials replayed over and over by now. For sports, I guess they are really marketing to the correct demographic because the commercials never seem to change. I’m extremely tired of the farking “Hemi” commercials by now, but for fast food commercials I’m semi-willing to let them pepper me with those for a bit because they can be funny and we’re always interested in cheap fast food.

Anywho, the current Del Taco commercial featuring those Four for $4 combos seems to have wormed its way into my brain, because the other day I decided to try one out. It’s a good thing that the Del Taco near me is difficult to get to; it’s on the opposite direction of a busy street so I’ve got to make an effort to get there (same with Jack-In-The-Balpha, by the way). Otherwise, I might eat there too often.

I’ve got a lot of good memories from eating at Del Taco in the 70s. I think we used to get the red or green chili burritos quite a bit, as well as the tacos. We pretty much switched off between Del Taco and Taco Bell equally. McDonalds and other hamburger joints didn’t get as much patronage from us.

So, I already knew that 25 percent of this combo would pretty much be a waste. Getting a soda as part of a combo meal is near the top of the Cheap Eats no-nos, especially if you’re taking out. Still, the way the portrayed the meals on TV, they made it sound like the average 6 foot tall 200 pound guy could get full on one of these. I’m a five foot 4 120 pound weakling and I could tell that this meal wasn’t enough just from taking it out of the bag.

The size of the burritos at Del Taco have certainly shrunk over the years. I couldn’t believe that they were calling this was a Del Beef Burrito. I think my mistake was getting the Del Beef Burrito and Taco combo. There are two other four dollar combos that I know of, including one that has a Big Fat Chicken Taco and Chicken Soft Taco and one featuring a Spicy Chicken Burrito and Chicken Soft Taco. Those seem more promising. It’s just that I ate all this poultry recently for Thanksgiving!

One other thing. In the commercial, they also mention that you can a free movie rental if you “up-size” the meal… this might be a good deal for some but I haven’t rented a movie from Blockbuster or any other place for years. I’d rather see more food in the combo meal than a stupid movie rental.

Continue reading “Del Taco Four Dollar Combo Meals” …

I could have seen this one coming a mile off. McDonald’s took first place in the Fast Food Poll I had on the site for last month, though not with some serious competition from Burger King. I’m actually quite surprised that Burger King made such a strong showing. It must be all their new “silent scary king mask” commercials that they’ve been pushing lately. Or perhaps it was their Enormous Omelette which seemed to get enormous publicity.

I’m a bit sad that my own fave, Jack in the Box, came in third. Belatedly, I also realized what with the furor over the Wendy’s chili finger incident that I should have included them in the poll instead of Carl’s Jr. I have a lot of good memories from Carl’s first introducing the Western Bacon Cheeseburger though, so I thought I’d include them:

As far as the cheapest restaurant of the four is concerned, all of them have their 99 cents menus and various other promotions. I feel that Jack in the Box promotes their 99 cent menu more than the others, although McD’s definitely has their “Day of the Week” specials that are extremely popular. I actually think Carl’s comes in a bit expensive, but maybe that’s because when I used to eat there when I was a kid I would go for the “strange” sandwiches, like that Chicken sandwich that actually had(has?) alfalfa sprouts in it, which are more expensive than plain old hamboigers.

Continue reading “McDonalds Wins Fast Food Poll” …

Has Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation really gotten to everybody and convinced them to avoid fast food restaurants? I haven’t read the book yet, so I can’t really comment. But I’ve heard from many friends who have read it that it’s been at least partially responsible for a 180 degree turn in the way they eat.

Maybe Detroit’s mayor has read the book one too many times. Or maybe he’s gotten addled from ingesting too many Super Size Fries and Big Macs. All I can say is boy, I bet he will be one hell of an unpopular guy (at least in fast food restaurants) if this proposed tax comes about. I know he’s certainly landed on my Cheap Eats shortlist of dummies. What will this fast food tax entail? From CNN Money article:

In an effort to curb a looming $300 million budget deficit, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick last month floated what he called a “different budget than has ever been presented to our city council.”

The budget includes a proposed 2 percent tax that would be levied only on sales at fast-food restaurants, among other items that would generate additional revenue for the city.

Like the majority of the people in the article, I just can’t see the justification of taxing fast food. I mean if you’re going to tax something, tax the sit down restaurants… tax those people wolfing down creme brulee lobster or whatever. Shoot, they can afford it. The people who go to fast food restaurants more frequently are often the ones who currently need to watch every penny spent on food. So, you’re basically going to end up levying this tax against people who it would hurt the most. What the hell.

Continue reading “Fast Food Tax?” …

I have a lot of fond memories of eating at Arby’s when I was a kid. But at the time I didn’t make a huge distinction between eating a Arby’s vs. eating at McDonald’s because I ate in fast food restaurants a lot less back then. So perhaps I didn’t appreciate the size of the roast beef sandwiches back then. Because they have certainly shrunk.

Not that other fast food places haven’t decreased the sizes of their hamburgers to match inflation while still keeping prices eye-catchingly low. I still have this conversation with friends, whether the sizes of hamburgers HAVE shrunk or are they near the same size but it was just because we were kids back then that they looked so big?

I’m pretty sure they have shrunk. Both in size and the amount of roast beef in them.

This shrinkage notwithstanding, I still hit up Arby’s once in awhile. When I went on a road trip to Colorado, we stopped at maybe 10 Arby’s restaurants along the way just because the food is predictibly decent and we’re not huge fans of McD’s hamburgers.

So how did Arby’s start up? Some history: It was established in Ohio in 1964 by brothers Forrest and Leroy Raffel, who go the idea for a roast beef sandwich franchise after eating at a Boston sandwich restaurant. As to the origins of the name “Arby’s” according to the Arby’s site, Forrest said:

“We came up with Arby’s, which stands for R.B., the initials of Raffel Brothers, although I guess customers might think the initials stand for roast beef.”

As for their current menu, the best thing for Cheap Eaters is probably to stick with the tried and true Roast Beef Sandwiches as it is difficult to mess them up. Over the years they’ve added other things which I always skip like Chicken Sandwiches, Wraps, Salads, Breakfast, and sides (like Mozzarella Sticks, Jalapeno Bites, and Onion Petals).

Continue reading “Arby’s – Where’s The Beef?” …

I must get Pizza Hut Coupons in the mail nearly every single day. In college, I used to think what a great service this was, bringing me deals on pizza right to my door. If you wanted to order pizza for takeout, you just checked your mail.

In truth, the price of pizza has risen like crazy. And at the same time the SIZE of pizza has shrunk like crazy. And never mind those boring commercials that tout a $5 price for each pizza after the first one from Domino’s Pizza. It’s all about buying in bulk nowadays and screwing customers over with redundant sides (breadsticks? Why would I want extra bread when I can just tear off the crust and eat it!)

Continue reading “Pizza Hut Coupons” …

It’s nice to see other people talking about Cheap Eats. Matt Helms from the Detroit Free Press wrote a short piece on the Tim Horton’s doughnut and fast food chain. This must be another one of those East Coast things (akin to something like the love for Dunkin’ Donuts that I experienced in Boston) because I’ve never heard of Tim Horton’s. It seems as if the chain is actually part of Wendy’s International Inc. and there are currently over 500 locations, though none near me.

Continue reading “Tim Horton’s” …

Man, Burger King really brought it when they decided to make this breakfast item. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a crazy looking fast food sandwich, it has just about everything in it that your average Meatasaurus would want to chow down on. It is just enormous, sort of reminds me when Carl’s Junior first came out with the Western Bacon Cheeseburger. I just couldn’t believe you could put hamburger, bacon and onion rings together. Is that, like TWO layers of scrambled egg loaf surrounding the meats? Makes me salivate a bit, I’d really like to try it when it comes out.

The No. 2 fast food chain debuted its Enormous Omelet Sandwich Monday. The sandwich has one sausage patty, two eggs, two American cheese slices and three strips of bacon … That works out to 730 calories and 47 grams of fat — more than a Whopper sandwich, which the Burger King Web site said has 700 calories and 42 grams of fat.

Continue reading “Enormous Omelette Sandwich” …