So I was blown away by Burger King Singapore’s offering for the first half of April. They launched the ‘Chocolate Whopper’ with chocolate sauce on April Fool’s Day claiming that this wasn’t a joke.
It’s quite interesting to note that in 2018, they actually had a chocolate related April fool’s prank.
Complete with a chocolate bun, chocolate patty, raspberry sauce to replace the ketchup, white chocolate to replace the onion rings, shaved chocolate as lettuce, vanilla frosting as mayo and candied oranges as tomatoes, this one was more of a dessert meant to give your blood sugar a trip to the sky.
The 2021 for real version is more practical I believe. But wait… it turns out that this has been introduced back in September 2020 in Taiwan. This recipe added peanut butter to the Hershey chocolate sauce.
Hmmm, I think they’re becoming more careful about their ingredients. I’m just glad that Singapore’s version didn’t casually add peanut butter to the whopper due to allergy risks.
Singapore’s Chocolate Whopper
With the whopper as the base, they replaced the ketchup with chocolate sauce. The onion and tomatoes were still there, but there was no lettuce.
Ok, before I continue, I need to disclose that this Chocolate Whopper was not consumed in the store. My husband bought it just before coming home from an errand run out of second hand excitement from me, and when he brought it home, it was a good 20 or so minutes after they got it from the store.
When I opened the wrapper, it looked a little messy with splotches of chocolate sauce. But I didn’t let that bother me. We’re dealing with chocolate here. Messy and chocolate co-exist.
What hits you first is the aroma. The flame grilled burger combined with the chocolate scent was quite enticing.
Next, I tasted the chocolate with the different parts of the burger. My first hesitation was the onion. Would it blend with the sauce? I noticed that the onion was cooked. It wasn’t caramelized but at least it wasn’t raw. I don’t think I’d enjoy the chocolate with raw onions. The cooked onion had a slight sweetness and it integrated well with the chocolate sauce. My second hesitation was the tomato. Surprisingly, it also didn’t bother me.
Finally, the bite test. I bite into the burger and now in my mouth, the smoky aroma was stronger and it had a good build up with the first burst of chocolate flavor and then IT flattened out. What I meant by IT was the build up and excitement. As my teenager said, the chocolate felt too artificial. The chocolate taste was wanting; it wasn’t strong enough. All I could taste in the end was the sweetness. Maybe we were looking for a bolder kick from the chocolate? A bit of bitterness or astringency would have done the trick. After all, despite the sweetness from ketchup and mayonnaise, their sour flavor isn’t compromised when added to a burger, why should the chocolate sauce be excessively sweet? A tug of flavor between bitter and sweet would have been welcomed by my palate.
As for the texture, I don’t think I’m fit to judge since it was about 20 minutes or so until I started eating it. The runny texture of the chocolate sauce, from being exposed too long from the hot patty, didn’t help the overall impact of the chocolate whopper.
Since we also took the Nugget Dipper which is their chicken nuggets with a chocolate sauce dip, we had a separate container for the chocolate that was spared from the heat. This one still had the relatively sticky and thick texture so we tried adding a bit of it to the burger. It somehow helped the balance of texture between the patty and the sauce but, it was still too sweet.
Nugget Dipper
We also tried the chicken nuggets with the chocolate sauce. The chicken nuggets were the usual good ones but again, it was boringly flat and sweet with the chocolate sauce. I really think allowing more room for authentic chocolate flavor would have done the trick for both the whopper and the chicken nuggets.
Mashed Up Fries
The Mashed Up Fries which is basically french fries with ice cream on top and chocolate sauce on the sides of the cup was an acceptable dessert. We’ve been enjoying french fries dipped in ice cream before this.
With the way it was assembled, just have a fork handy after minutes of not eating it. If you’re ok with your fingers digging their way through the melted ice cream for the fries that have drowned, then you should be fine with no fork nor spoon. Maybe if they made the fries a tad bit saltier, the salty and sweet combination would be a real treat.
So YAY or NAY?
If it’s your first time and you’re truly curious, go ahead. You have until April 15 to try it. Personally, I don’t think I’ll be ordering the chocolate whopper and the nugget dipper again. I’ll go back to the original.
You know what? I might probably bring a whopper home and make my own chocolate sauce that has a good balance between the sweetness and bitterness of the chocolate. Then I’ll slather it on the patty.
Do you think that’s a good topic for my next article?