The Golden Arches

With the success of KPop Demon Hunters, it should be no surprise that the world has been flooded by a glut of merchandise. Toys and clothing and lunchboxes and everything else you can think of has been coming out at a steady clip. The film took over hearts and minds even before it went and won a couple of Oscars (for best animated film and best song). To say this will be a franchise that will dominate kid (and tween) media for some time is an understatement. Its sequel is hotly anticipated and in the interim, while everyone waits for that film, merchandise can fill the void.

Which is why it isn’t surprising that some fast food restaurant slid on in and decided to grab up the rights to do some kind of crossover with the film. This resulted in the KPop Demon Hunters X McDonald's which features a wide variety of options for a fan of the film to get into. This includes a lunch meal, and breakfast meal, desert, and collectibles. We’ll be covering the lunch option in this article (as that was the easiest for me to get to after work this week), and will be following it up later with a look at the breakfast meal (once I have the desire for a spicy McMuffin).

The lunch meal is themed after HUNTR/X, the female band from the film, and it’s a 10-piece Chicken McNugget meal that comes with Rameyon McShaker Fries, a medium drink, and two special Hunter and Demon sauces for the nuggets. Oh, and a couple of collectible cards, two per package, which are random for each pack. Just from the size alone we can see that while this is solid like a Happy Meal, even coming in a Happy Meal-style box, this is a larger meal meant for a teen or adult. Clearly McDonald's knows who has really gotten into KPop Demon Hunters.

If this were just a 10-piece nugget meal I wouldn’t consider it anything too special. McDonald's already offers a 10-piece meal as part of its normal Extra Value Meals. But there are enough little things added in that this might just feel like a good deal for fans of the film, first of which is the selection of two different sauces for the nuggs. While I’m not certain if you could get these separately if you ordered a normal nugget meal (my guess is probably so if you can find the options on the menu), the two sauces do add a nice twist to the standard nugget meal.

The Hunter sauce is a sweet chili sauce, bright and tasty with just a little spice to it. It’s a McDonald’s sauce so it’s not really spicy – my wife was able to handle it and she pretty much can’t stand any spice at all – but it was nice and tangy and a good alternative to the usual barbeque sauce I get when I grab chicken nuggets. The Demon sauce, meanwhile, is a thick, creamy, almost off-putting purple sauce that, to me, tasted like a tangy ranch. Apparently it’s actually tangy mustard, but either the taste on a nugget is weird or just the fact that it was purple threw off all my taste buds. Either way, it didn’t taste like mustard to me. Not that it was bad; I enjoyed it once I got my brain past just how purple it was.

Along with the nuggets was the medium Raymeon McShaker Fries. In effect you get a standard fry that you dump into a different bag, along with a packet of seasoning to put in with the fries, and then you shake them up to create a new fry flavor. I found this a little silly as it effectively meant that McDonald’s didn’t actually have to do anything special here for a side; they could just give you a packet of salt and make you DIY. Whatever the case, this is the way it’s made so we just get to live.

As far as actual flavor, the Raymeon fries weren’t bad, but I wasn’t thrilled by them either. The seasoning packet is described as a soy-garlic seasoning, but in effect it tasted like a packet of ramen seasoning that I was putting on fries instead of noodles. I guess going for a ramen flavor makes a certain amount of sense since the ladies of the band are shown eating ramen early in the film, but I wouldn’t really call it a very strong connection to the source material. And, in effect, all it really did was make already salty fries even saltier, while adding just a bit of umami tang. I was unimpressed (although my wife did enjoy them).

Finally the meal has a drink, which is just a standard, non-branded Medium soda, along with a packet of two collectible cards. My wife, who immediately snatched them (this meal was really for her because she loves the movie), got two foil cards: Mira, the lead dancer for the group, and the demon cat Derpy. She seemed pleased. I guess if you really wanted a full collection of cards (that have no function other than looking pretty) then these are… good? I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I felt any need to collect cards. But, again, she was pleased with her foil cards, so who am I to judge?

Along with the meal we also ordered the special Derby McFlurry, a dessert based on the demon cat from the film. As it’s a McFlurry it has a vanilla soft serve base into which is mixed a wild berry sauce along with berry-flavored boba pearls. And it is actually pretty good. If it was just the soft serve and sauce I wouldn’t be too impressed and it would taste like a pretty mild berry ice cream. With the pearls, though, the flavor kicks up a notch. The pearls taste like little blueberries, even if they don’t have the same texture. Their little pops of syrup flood into the mouth and accent the rest of the dessert. This was a really good treat and I enjoyed about half of it before I got completely sugared out and had to stop.

Of note there’s both a full sized as well as a mini version of the dessert, and while we ordered the mini the restaurant ended up giving us a full-sized one. I think if I’d had the mini I probably would have been just fine and might have even been able to finish it. A normal sized amount was too much for me, and I fear for anyone that can actually pack this whole thing away in a sitting. That’s… just too much.

So, overall I’d consider this meal a mixed bag. I think if you already are in the mood for a 10-piece Chicken McNuggets meal (since that’s the only option for your main in this combo) and you don’t mind the thought of extra-salty fries, then the combo would likely seem pretty reasonable. You get a fun box, you get a couple of collectible cares, and you get a Medium meal. If you like KPop Demon Hunters, that feels like a win-win. For anyone that doesn’t want nuggets, though, and who might be getting the meal for themselves or someone else that likes the movie so they can have the collectible cards, though, the value doesn’t feel as strong. It’s fine for a specific fan, but I don’t imagine it has legs beyond that. But get the mini version of the McFlurry. Of everything I tried, this is the easiest recommendation of the set.

And with that we’ll be back soon (assuming we can get it before it goes out of stock) with a look at the Saja Boys breakfast. We’ll have to see just how special (or not) that combo ends up being.