We usually come down pretty hard on excessively fatty takeaway meals at Lifehacker — as a recent IHME study has shown, despite the recent exercise boom people are still getting fatter the world over. Sometimes however, you need to throw caution to the wind, unfasten your belt and treat yourself to a decadent orgy of fast food. This is where McDonald’s “Noah’s Ark” Burger comes in: arguably the finest creation by God or man.
Earlier in the week, we ran a post about McDonald’s new Hunger Deal which packs around 6800 kilojoules into a meal for one comprising a Big Mac, a cheeseburger, a medium fries, a medium Coke and an apple pie or chocolate sundae.
We thought this was pretty excessive, but Lifehacker reader “mrjezza” proved us wrong in the comments section. If you really want to go the whole hog (and cow and chicken) you need to create your own burger. Behold the McDonald’s “Noah’s Ark”:
My greatest McDonalds creation was the Noah’s Ark – aptly named because you needed a cow, a pig and a chicken to make it happen. You started with a Double Beef & Bacon and added the chicken breast fillet from whatever the chicken burger was called back then.
[clear] [clear]
Unfortunately the burger where the fillet came from isn’t on the menu anymore but it may be worth trying it with a McChamp patty because not a single person that I shared the Noah’s Ark with didn’t want another one.
We’ve eaten some oversized burgers in our time, but this thing sounds ridiculous. Nevertheless, we felt it was our duty to taste-test mrjezza’s processed food menagerie for our readers.
We headed to our local McDonald’s and sheepishly asked if it was possible to combine meat patties into a single burger. Without batting an eyelid, the cashier explained that we needed to start with a burger from the menu and could then add whatever we wanted to it for an additional charge. Apparently, they must get these requests often.
We decided to plump for a Mighty Angus burger which already came with the bacon and added a McChamp chicken patty. (We contemplated tossing a Fillet o Fish on top, but thought better of it.)
The total cost of this standalone burger was a rather steep $9.95 — the same price as the aforementioned Hunger Deal. Adding a drink and fries would presumably push the total to around $15.
If we had to describe the Noah’s Ark burger in one word it would be a tossup between “meaty” and “awesome”. Against our expectations, the abundance of processed meats actually complement each other superbly in both flavour and texture. For an extra 1000kj or so, you’re actually getting a burger that doesn’t taste horribly bland.
When it comes to extremely guilty pleasures, we’d definitely rate the Noah’s Ark burger as a treat that you need to experience at least once in your life. Unless you’re a vegetarian, obviously.
UPDATE: Having just returned from the toilet, I no longer feel able to recommend this meal to readers of Lifehacker.
Think you can top mrjezza’s Noah’s Ark burger? [contact text=”Send in”] your own customised takeaway creations and we’ll publish the best ones in a followup article!
Comments
40 responses to “Taste Test: McDonald’s ‘Noah’s Ark’ Burger”
Best update ever
Was the toilet price related to the content or perhaps poor prep at that particular maccas? i.e was this a case of tap-ass or mud-but
An awesome one I picked off a webcomic years ago was the Whopper-Pounder.
Get a quarter pounder from macca’s, a whopper from HJ, insert pounder into whopper.
The unholy abomination tastes so good and really kicks you in the gut.
McGangbang = Whole Cheeseburger (bun and all) into a McChicken
The SEAL burger = Fillet o Fish patty & McChicken patty into a Big Mac. (Sea, Air, Land and needs your special forces to finish it)
Another good one is to order a sunday (any flavour or plain) and a hot apple, then smash teh apple pie into the sunday…. mmmmmm nice
rofl’d so much @ mcgangbang.
Was going to ask if you saw what happened at our local maccas in the back kitchen last year… O_O
I honestly can’t think of a less sexy place than a McDonald’s kitchen.
lmao tell me about it. One of the girls and two guys got sacked when she managed to work their special sauce out of them on an all night shift in the managers office haha. They got busted only because it was her first night managing, were ALL drinking on the job and then had their little ‘party’. Idiots.
Wouldn’t the McGangbang be more accurately described as a McFist? Just sayin’
Omg i cant believe all the comments a missing the most important ingredient, special big mac sauce
turns your McGangbang into a Big McGangbang
Big mac sauce finishes every burger off nicely with its acidic tones
Bloke at my TAFE way back when used to get a Big Mac and replace the patties with McChicken patties… Wouldnt eat anything else from Maccas…
If by chance you happened to go to Holmesglen (now called whatever the hell it is now), that person was me. If not, then I believe I may have a beautiful shared opinion with this man.
Ed: Apparantly still called Holmesglen, I have no idea why I thought the name had changed
or you guys couldve just ordered two mcchickens with big mac sauce…
Must be high in fibre…
This is why I love you guys. Great update….although prob shoulda splurged on a side of nuggets as well just to be sure.
I once ordered a McChicken with 12 chicken patties, And they didn’t even hesitate – just started adding it on. In the past it was a lot more difficult to do this, so props to maccas for giving the consumer what they want!
The only question was at the next window as to how I would like it packaged. Unfortunately, they refused my request to wrap it as one burger and put it in four seperate boxes 🙁
Dietary fat does not cause fat gain or obesity, it’s about time you stopped promoting this myth.
Should have added the fish too…
I MUST TRY THIS!!
JEEVES! TAKE ME TO THE NEAREST GENERIC FAST FOOD CHAIN SO THAT I MAY FEAST UPON THE NOAH’S ARK!
Very honoured to have my burger officially taste tested!
I haven’t done this variation using the Angus as a starting point. The way I built it back in the day was starting with the Double Beef & Bacon and putting the chicken on that and they were only $2 back in the day.
I think if today you started with the double cheese from the loose change menu you could still end up with a relatively cheap Noah’s Ark 😉
I definitely want to try it with the double beef & bacon. The Angus variety seems like too much.
Honestly i’m very surprised so many people seem to have NOT tried 3 burgers into 1 like this before haha xD
Exactly when did you ‘invent’ this Noah’s Ark Burger, because I distinctly remember Something Awful forum users coming up with the concept years ago when Burger King USA ran a very misguided attempt at an a la carte menu with “design your own burger” for in-store pickup. One of these custom burgers was the ‘Noah’s Ark’ with 2 portions of beef, chicken, fish and bacon and wound up costing $16. Were you this user?
What an update, hahaha. Love the comments people. Well Done.
I’ll just leave this here….
http://www.phuocndelicious.com/2010/08/21/the-ark-burger-vazs-takeaway/
Behold: The ARK BURGER!!
Leaves the one in the article for dead. Sadly, the takeaway place sold his business.
Wait wait wait.. You’re X years old and you’ve never had a fast food burger with with all 3 meats?! Your mother has some serious explaining to do, young man.
This ‘Noah’s Ark’ burger is clearly a fake
A true ‘Noah’s Ark’ burger would consist of a triple quarter pounder with cheese burger customized with a slice of bacon, a McChicken patty & a Filet-O-Fish patty… in the most extreme cases (and when available) the McRib pork patty can also be added – for the crazy kids out there, throw on an egg from the breakfast menu.
Checkmate.
as the creator of the Noah’s Ark I can tell you the reason it doesn’t have fish is because they wouldn’t have been inside the ark.
they can swim so I don’t think a deluge of water had them particularly worried enough to jump into a waterless environment.
Awesome reply hahahahaha, it implys you had the name before the burger. Funny funny hahahah
You didn’t ‘invent’ the Noah’s Ark, at its most innocent, I’d say you were one of several. More likely, I suspect the SA article eventually filtered through the internet till someone like you decided to appropriate it, thinking there were enough degrees of separation for you to assume ownership of the concept. What year did you say you come up with the idea?
Am I missing something in the comments here?
Why would Noah’s Ark have fish? What was their risk from the Biblical flood?
The same reason why we have both salt water and fresh water crocodiles. Marine life is very susceptible to slight changes to their environment, so Noah would have required multiple environmentally controlled aquariums on board for many species to have survived.
You could do it with the Double Cheeseburger, and a chicken and mayo burger, sans lettuce and bun. And bacon. Which should put you at $4 without the bacon…
My original recipe did call for starting with a double beef & bacon, which is essentially a double cheeseburger plus bacon and cost you $2 in 2008. Adding just the fillet from the high end chicken burger only cost a few dollars too. Most people couldn’t find the right fillet in the computer so I had a manager tell me to always say “premium chicken portion in the extras menu” (thanks guy!)
I didn’t like it at all with the McChicken type patty, but each to their own 🙂
Its not a burger exactly but a subway chicken sub combined with chips & gravy is a surprisingly nice mashup
My favourite custom burger is known as the McMutant. You take a quarter pounder and then add a chicken patty to it. I was introduced to it last week and I’ve had 3 since. The cost is about $7-8.
A a client of ours, some of the guys would have a Double Krispy Wopper, they would get a double wopper, minus the bun from Hungry Jacks, get a Krispy Kreme donut, cut the donut in half, and place the internals of the double wopper inside the donut.
Sounded disgusting, but they seamed to like it.
Better than this is what I like to call the Farmyard Muffin. This requires going to McDonalds when they’ve almost stopped serving dinner but it’s not quite breakfast time yet, just before the menu switchover (ie, perfect when you’re pissed on the town).
You want a Sausage and Egg McMuffin, plus bacon, a chicken patty, and to top it all off with a hash brown and whichever sauce you prefer. Absolutely awesome.
As someone who has to deal with requests like this an actually make the monstrosities you call burgers, I can tell you that Noah’s Ark is pretty tame. Some of the orders we get, especially at night when we’re trying to keep as little stock up as possible, are ridiculous.
However, mrjezza, if you’re dealing with an order taker that actually follow procedure, the burger isn’t that cheap to make. Thing is, with our Loose Change Menu, if you add anything to the burgers, they’re (meant) to be put through at full price. That $2 McDouble becomes around $4.50 before adding anything else.
This isn’t anything new. This is called a McDank or alternative a McGangBang. It’s a favourite of drunkards the world over.
Shouldn’t a Noahs Ark have two of every meat?