Yeah yeah, cheesy pandering title, I know. But if I have that little ditty stuck in my head, so should you. Misery loves company after all, amirite?
Anyway, had a late meeting after work tonight that meant I wasn't going to be home in time to eat anything resembling supper. And since it's in no one's best interest to leave me hungry and foodless (I know it's not a word, but it should be) I started to explore my feeding options.
In the past I've grabbed a chopped chicken salad from Subway which is fine but let's face it, I'm bored to tears of chopped chicken salads. The friendly (at times) folks at my local Subway, all too conveniently located in my office building, know precisely how to craft my particular kind of chopped chicken salad, right down to the dressing on the side. They see me coming? They go to the back and grab the choppin' bowl. That's how predictable I've become.
I'd heard of these new salads McDonald's was rolling out so decided to investigate more. I still attempt to maintain a certain degree of carb consciousness so was interested to see what these puppies would ring in at not only for carbs but also calories, fat, sodium, and protein. Since many of these 'salads' in fast food land are actually more nutritionally bankrupt than their delicious burger counterparts, I've learned to be wary and never judge a salad by it's sheer salad-ness.
Colour me pleasantly surprised when I looked up the nutritional content of their offerings. I considered my options and decided that I'd grab the grilled chicken Greek salad as it seemed to best meet my needs at 8pm. You can find a full list of what's in the salad as well as a detailed ingredients breakdown on the McDonald's website should you be so inclined. And snaps to them for an excellent design on their nutritional info page, btw.
Anyway, had a late meeting after work tonight that meant I wasn't going to be home in time to eat anything resembling supper. And since it's in no one's best interest to leave me hungry and foodless (I know it's not a word, but it should be) I started to explore my feeding options.
In the past I've grabbed a chopped chicken salad from Subway which is fine but let's face it, I'm bored to tears of chopped chicken salads. The friendly (at times) folks at my local Subway, all too conveniently located in my office building, know precisely how to craft my particular kind of chopped chicken salad, right down to the dressing on the side. They see me coming? They go to the back and grab the choppin' bowl. That's how predictable I've become.
I'd heard of these new salads McDonald's was rolling out so decided to investigate more. I still attempt to maintain a certain degree of carb consciousness so was interested to see what these puppies would ring in at not only for carbs but also calories, fat, sodium, and protein. Since many of these 'salads' in fast food land are actually more nutritionally bankrupt than their delicious burger counterparts, I've learned to be wary and never judge a salad by it's sheer salad-ness.
Colour me pleasantly surprised when I looked up the nutritional content of their offerings. I considered my options and decided that I'd grab the grilled chicken Greek salad as it seemed to best meet my needs at 8pm. You can find a full list of what's in the salad as well as a detailed ingredients breakdown on the McDonald's website should you be so inclined. And snaps to them for an excellent design on their nutritional info page, btw.
So I fly into Union Station to catch my train home and thankfully there isn't much of a line at the McD's at this time of night. Takes them some time to make my salad (cue repeated fretful looks to my watch as the seconds ticked by) but hey, I'd rather wait a 30 count than have them hand me something that had been sitting for who knows how long. Grabbed my bag of salad and its accoutrements and raced for my train.
At first glance I was genuinely pleased at both the quantity and quality of the chicken. Lawd knows how they make it but it tasted, well, as a grilled chicken breast should. After adding half a packet of the dressing (I HATE too much dressing on my salad) and strategically picking out the few olives I could see (I HATE olives, too) I was ready to give it a try.
Fresh red peppers and cucumbers, grilled chicken, feta, many different types of lettuce and a couscous mix made up my dinner (apparently there were supposed to be some herb and garlic pita chips, but I didn't get any of those with mine for some reason). I gave it all a good stir with my fork, and as the train pulled out of Union towards home I took my first bite.
I eat a lot of salad now, salads as meals, quite often, so I fancy myself a bit of a salad snob. A connoisseur, if you will, of all things cruciferously assembled into a bowl and topped with a dressing of some kind. So to be quite honest, I wasn't expecting much from this latest offering from McDonald's of all places.
You can only imagine my surprise, therefore, when the damned thing was actually good. Not just good, but pretty darned delicious. The aforementioned chicken was tasty and warm, the lettuce was super fresh as were the cucumbers and red pepper (though I could have done with a bit more of both) and the dressing wasn't overly flavoured which appealed to me. And probably anyone who had to sit near me on the train.
I'm truly delighted to finally have a healthy option from McDonald's that I can turn to pretty much anywhere. In the past three years (aka since losing the weight) I've only eaten from McDonald's three times, and two of those were because I was starving after a few pints and there was simply nothing else open, anywhere. So a cheeseburger and small fries it was, because there weren't any other options. Now? Options!! So exciting to have options again! Road trip? McD's are everywhere and now if I'm travelling and need a meal on the go I have a viable (and tasty - bonus!) alternative.
So there you have it. My review of the new McDonald's Greek salad with grilled chicken. Definitely won't be a one hit wonder in my fast food repertoire - I just hope I don't get sick of it too quickly like I did with my Subway chopped chicken. Time will tell!
And oh yeah - I'm not affiliated with McDonald's in any way, they didn't pay me for saying nice things about their salads and they have not provided me with any free lettuce or salad of any kind. :D
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