A couple months ago, Burger King revealed the Mexican Street Corn, Fried Pickle Ranch, and Maple Bourbon BBQ Whoppers in a press release covering the Million Dollar Whopper Contest. In summary, people from across the United States proposed their own ideas for special Whoppers, and the top three recipes actually went into production so that customers can vote for which is the best.

I’ve always been more of a McDonald’s person than a Burger King person, and I actually don’t even remember how many years it’s been since I’ve last been at a Burger King (before this trip, obviously), but I like trying out new foods and innovative dishes, so I decided to try four Whoppers—one of each of the new Whoppers, plus one classic Whopper as a baseline.

In central Las Vegas, each of the new Whoppers costs US$6.99 for the entrée (i.e., just for the sandwich, and not as a meal or combo), but there is a special digital-exclusive deal called the “Million Dollar Whopper® Flight” that lets you buy all three at a discounted rate of US$18.99, saving US$1.98, if you order ahead online. A regular Whopper comes in at US$5.89, which brings the total to US$24.88 before taxes. Note that this is region-specific pricing, so your Whoppers may be more or less expensive than mine.

In order to give as balanced of a review as possible, I followed a controlled methodology for taste testing. I split each Whopper into fourths. I ate one quarter of each fresh Whopper, one after another, then ate another quarter of each fresh Whopper, again, one after another. Afterwards, half of each Whopper remained. I took the leftovers and refrigerated them for eight hours, and once I was no longer satiated, I retrieved and microwaved them all together for two minutes. For the second half of the taste test, I repeated the cycle—two rounds of eating a quarter of each Whopper per round until I was done.

In no particular order, first up is the Fried Pickle Ranch Whopper with a quarter-pound flame-grilled beef patty, fried pickles, pickle ranch, bacon, lettuce, and Swiss cheese.

This burger was unbelievably salty to the point where it felt like the inside of my mouth itself was getting pickled. I think a lot of the sodium might have been concentrated in the Swiss cheese, but either way, it made for a pretty unpleasant experience.

I’m generally fine with fresh pickles and will sometimes even request pickles on sandwiches that don’t usually come with pickles because I think they add a nice kick to the flavor profile, but these fried pickles were something else… in a not-so-great way. This Whopper might be great for someone who likes fried pickles, but I think they just aren’t my thing.

This Whopper was the one that had the sharpest decline in quality after refrigeration and reheating. I didn’t really want to finish the second half of this Whopper after microwaving it, but for the sake of not wasting food, I removed all the fried pickles and scraped off as much Swiss cheese as possible, which made it a bit more palatable for me.

Overall, the Fried Pickle Ranch Whopper was my least favorite out of the four.

Next is the Mexican Street Corn Whopper with a quarter-pound flame-grilled beef patty, Southwest seasoned tortilla crisps, Mexican spicy queso, street corn spread, lettuce, and tomato.

The most straightforward and easy way to put this is that this was like a ground beef taco in the form of a burger. Upon my initial bite, I was going to say that it basically tastes like a normal Whopper but with Fritos® inside, but after I started recognizing more of the flavor of the sauces, I realized it was definitely a distinct and unique Whopper, and not just a regular Whopper with one extra topping on it.

Out of the three new Whoppers, this one was my favorite.

Last but not least out of the new Whoppers is the Maple Bourbon BBQ Whopper with a quarter-pound flame-grilled beef patty, bacon, American cheese, crispy onions and jalapeños, maple bourbon barbecue sauce, and maple bacon seasoning.

This most resembled a menu item that I would expect to see on a fast food restaurant’s permanent menu. I can’t really think of any specific menu items or restaurants off the top of my head, but this was basically the same as a Texan-style BBQ cheeseburger that I’d find at a burger joint. The components of the Whopper worked well together and formed a cohesive and complementary flavor profile.

The reason why this wasn’t my favorite Whopper was because the barbecue sauce was way too sweet. I also don’t think the sauce was applied to the burger in the most effective way. Instead of splitting it so that it makes direct contact with both the toppings and the base of the patty, it was only spread on the top bun. This meant that the sauce wasn’t really absorbed by the beef patty, but it was extra absorbed by the bacon and crispy onions, so the bacon tasted like candied bacon and the crispy onions were a bit soggy.

And finally, serving as the control group, I also ordered a regular Whopper with a quarter-pound flame-grilled beef patty, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, sliced white onions, mayonnaise, and ketchup between a toasted sesame seed bun.

I don’t know if this was just the nostalgia kicking in from when I would eat Whoppers once in a while as a kid, but in my opinion, this was overwhelmingly the best Whopper.

This had the most vegetables, which gave the sandwich the most refreshing overall flavor profile. I love raw onions, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I was trying to do as unbiased of a review as possible of these unmodified Whoppers, I would’ve asked for extra onions. Mayonnaise is my favorite condiment, but I haven’t had much of it over the past few years since I found out that I have high cholesterol and need to minimize my saturated fat consumption; that fact might’ve caused tasting the mayo in this Whopper to be extra satisfying.

As a disclaimer, even though I go to fast food restaurants somewhat often, I usually order basic and straightforward sandwiches with either beef, chicken, or fish as the meat and a balanced portion of vegetables. I try to avoid fried foods, I don’t like bacon, and I think most cheeses smell like mold and sometimes make me want to vomit. Thus, I think it’s reasonable to say that I have a “cleaner” palate, and my opinions on these Whoppers would probably align closer with people in similar situations as myself, as opposed to people who might be more used to foods with more intense and explosive flavors.

I’m glad I tried the Million Dollar Whopper® Flight, not only because it was nice participating in a limited-time event, but also because this reminded me that I am most compatible with and should probably just stick with chicken and fish sandwiches like I usually do.

Like usual, I still add at least a day or two of buffer before and after travel days when I go to a different city, so when I went to Seattle for the Sea-Meow Convention, I had some extra days in town to spend together with friends. On one of the days, I got dinner with Dani at 2120, a New American restaurant in downtown next to Amazon’s Spheres.

(Note: The lighting in this restaurant was very dim, and these photos were taken with my phone, so they’re not quite up to the same level of quality as many of my other food pictures.)

As our first appetizer, we got steak tartare made from prime New York beef topped with shallot, extra virgin olive oil, parsley, egg yolk, and pickled mustard seed with a side of house-made potato chips.

Steak tartare is often served with bread, so it was interesting to see it served with potato chips here. I think chips would be fine if it accompanied beef that was particularly strong or gamey, as the fried flavor of the chips would pierce through the beefiness. However, this steak had a smooth and mild flavor—which, in itself, is good—but I think it would’ve worked much better with plain bread, as the potato chips ended up being a bit overwhelming for this. Adjacently, I think chips would work if the beef was bland, but this tartare was properly seasoned, so the chips just ended up adding a bit too much saltiness to the overall flavor profile.

For our beverages, we ordered two drinks from the zero-proof menu: Dani ordered a No Bucks Given made from cranberry compote, ginger syrup, and fresh lime juice mixed into a soda base; and I got a Pear Citrus Spritz made from pear compote and fresh lemon with a soda base.

My pear drink demonstrated a peculiar flavor profile phenomenon in which, if I drank a normal sip, it would just taste like I was drinking lemon juice with no pear, but if I took a tiny sip to the extent that it was only enough to just barely wet my tongue, I would be able to identify the pear flavor with almost no lemon.

Our next appetizer was a half dozen Washington oysters served on half-shells with a side of apple cider mignonette. These were solid oysters with a pure taste and refreshing texture.

As our side to along with our main entrées, Dani wanted to try the beet salad with roasted pear, pistachio, whipped chèvre, and cranberry vinaigrette.

It surprisingly wasn’t bad, but there’s only so much you can do with beets, so it wasn’t particularly delicious.

Our first main dish was grilled octopus with serrano and white bean purée, chili flakes, sautéed kale, chickpeas, and burnt orange gastrique.

This would have been my favorite dish of the restaurant if it wasn’t about four times saltier than it needed to be. I could tell that the octopus had a deep, rich flavor and the texture was incredibly soft and tender, but because it was egregiously oversalted, it bordered on being bitter.

Next was smoked salmon rillette with parsley, pickled red onion, fried caper, chive oil, lemon, and aioli with a side of crostini.

This was fine and was technically exactly what the menu said it was, but I guess I didn’t really quite properly grasp what rillette was, because it wasn’t what I was expecting. This dish sort of tasted like I just opened some really high-end canned salmon dip and ate it as a spread on bread.

The density of the crostini was a bit too low. … In simpler terms, there were too many holes in the bread. I would’ve appreciated it if the bread contained more bread.

For our carb dish, we ordered house-made oxtail pappardelle with rosemary, pecorino romano, heavy cream, lemon, and oxtail jus.

This pasta came out with way too much Parmesan cheese on it. I’m not a fan of cheese, especially the types that smell extra moldy like Parmesan does, so that single-handedly ruined the dish for me. I think it would’ve been a lot better if they added fresh Parmesan tableside, because then I would’ve been able to decline it. I couldn’t really tell how the pasta was because all I could taste was the cheese, so I wasn’t really able to objectively assess the dish.

Our final entrée of the night was seared scallops with pickled shimeji, celery root purée, Japanese eggplant, and chili oil.

Dani had a portion of this dish and brought the rest back home to give to her housemates, so I only sampled half a scallop. The portion I did have was great—the scallop was thick, tender, and rich with flavor. However, almost every other component of the dish was a bit too earthy to the point of being bitter.

For dessert, we ordered some Olympic Mountain pear-raspberry sorbet.

This was a refreshing conclusion to our meal. It had a good balance of pear and raspberry flavor, and it wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet. The portion size was also satisfyingly large, and was way more than you’d get at an ice cream shop for the price.

I took some photos of the restaurant. It looks empty because we were one of the first reservations of the day and I snapped these pictures on my way to the restroom right after we arrived, but by the time we were done dining, the restaurant was pretty full and bustling.

Although 2120 wasn’t a bad restaurant, I thought it was a little bit underwhelming across the board. They market themselves as fine dining, but I think they spent too much on the perception and presentation of the restaurant, and not enough on improving the dishes.

Usually, I’m able to get a general gist of the theme of what I enjoyed or what I think could be improved, but I couldn’t really come up with something like that for 2120. It seems like my likes and dislikes were quite scattered, with different kinds of compliments and critiques being applicable for different dishes (which explains why my dish-by-dish feedback above was fairly diverse).

I found the environment of the restaurant to be pleasant, and I had no complaints about the service. However, the only menu item I found to be worth the money was the sorbet, with everything else not quite meeting expectations at their respective pricepoints.

I guess it is possible that I was so unlucky that I somehow only picked their mediocre dishes and managed to avoid all their specialties or something, but based on my dining experience this day, I think there are a lot of other restaurants I would recommend before this one.