Drive-Thru Gourmet

Bunches of bacon beef up McDonald's new signature smokehouse burger

This new burger boasts a mess o' bacon.

Courtesy photo

This week, I reached out for a new Bacon Smokehouse Burger, the latest addition to the la-di-da Signature Crafted Recipes Collection at McDonald's, with more than 14,000 restaurants across the old U.S. of A.

Signature? Exactly how much is Ronald McDonald's autograph worth these days?

Here's the Bacon Smokehouse Burger breakdown: a quarter-pound beef patty, Applewood-smoked bacon, real white Cheddar cheese, smoky bacon-onion sauce, mild mustard sauce and fried onion strings on a fluffy bun.

Total calories: 840. Fat grams: 45. Sodium: 1,580 mg. Carbs: 45 g. Dietary fiber: 2 g. Protein: 46 g. Manufacturer's suggested retail price: $5.19 or thereabouts.

Like any burger, the bottom line — and layer — is the meat, and the Bacon Smokehouse comes with McDonald's fresh, never-frozen quarter-pound beef patty. You may have heard that McDonald's uses fresh beef in its more exquisite burgers now — it's all they can talk about every 15 minutes on TV. Hey, when Charles Barkley brags about a burger, there's a good chance he's speaking from experience. Lots of experience.

Because McDonald's cooks its big burgers to order on a flat iron grill, they do arrive on your tray or through the drive-through window hotter and juicier than in warm, holding tray days gone by.

The Bacon Smokehouse is gussied up with a mountain of accessories. The onion strings are breaded and deep-fried in each store. It's curious, to say the least, how all the burger big boys are slapping French fried onions on their sandwiches lately. It's like watching TV at 6 pm, all the local news stations are doing weather at the same time, sports at the same time, ending with a goofy joke at the same time. It's collusion. Where's Robert Mueller on this? It's time to flip a witness ... and some burgers.

The Bacon Smokehouse has two sauces, bacon-onion and sweet mustard, which is totally unnecessary and only increases the cone of glop uncertainty. I'd lose the sweet mustard, which brings forward the smoky essence of the bacon-onion schmear.

Real cheese!
I love when McDonald's boasts, "Real white Cheddar!" It's like that scene from National Lampoon's Vacation where Clark Griswold asks Cousin Eddie ... "real tomato ketchup?"

"Nothing but the best."

Bottom line: The Bacon Smokehouse is a mighty, heavy-duty McDonald's burger with all of McDonald's flair and heft. I liked it a lot.

The Bacon Smokehouse also is available in Buttermilk Crispy Chicken and Artisan Grilled Chicken versions.

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Ken Hoffman reviews popular fast food restaurant items. Have a suggestion or a drive-thru favorite? Let Ken know in the comments or on Twitter.

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H-Town rising

Houston leaps back into top 50 'World's Best Cities' list for 2025

Photo by Adrian Newell on Unsplash

Houston made a big leap back into the top 50, ranking No. 40, after previously plummeting into No. 72 last year.

Lively Houston has regained its rightful place among the top 50 best cities in the world, according to a prestigious new report by Resonance Consultancy.

The Canada-based real estate and tourism marketing advisors ranked Houston the 40th best city worldwide for 2025 in its annual "World's Best Cities" list.

The report quantifies the relative qualities of livability, "lovability," and prosperity for the world's top 100 cities with metropolitan populations of 1 million or more. New to the 10th anniversary edition, Resonance partnered with global market researchers Ipsos to include perception-based data into the rankings, surveying over 22,000 people in 30 countries worldwide to determine "the most desirable places to visit, live or work."

Houston made a major rebound after plummeting to No. 73 in last year's report. In 2022, Houston ranked No. 42.

Resonance refers to its previous "World's Best Cities" reports and its 2024 "America's Best Cities" list – which ranked Houston in the top 10 – when explaining the Bayou City's successes. The report praised Houston's vast cultural diversity and placed a great focus on its economic prosperity, even going so far as to suggest Houston residents make more money "and can sock more away."

"...[W]here America’s fourth-largest city truly takes off is in its economic heft and wealth, ranking No. 9 globally for GDP per Capita and No. 14 for Fortune 500 companies in town," the report said. "All that rolls up into an overall Prosperity index ranking of No. 36, which is even more impressive given the No. 14-ranked Price-to Income Ratio [of the city]."

Elsewhere in Texas, Austin and Dallas also earned spots on the World's Best Cities list for 2025, but only one made a similar rebound from the previous year's rankings. Dallas moved up from No. 66 in last year's report to its current rank as No. 55. Meanwhile, Austin took its first tumble out of the 43rd spot (which it had occupied for two years straight) and now ranks No. 53.

London held onto its crown as the No. 1 best city in the world for 2025, followed by New York (No. 2), Paris (No. 3), Tokyo (No. 4), and Singapore (No. 5).