The Banquet parade continues into this new week! Kudos to the Banquet people for trying to have a pretty large selection of meals. And, dammit, kudos to ME for slowly working my way through them. Some are easier to get through than others. I like their meals in line with chicken fingers…Mostly because I love chicken fingers. Because I’m not a crazy person. I’m both sane AND awesome. Sane, awesome types probably had chicken McNuggets as a child. You see, once upon a time you could get McNuggets, fries, Hi-C fruit punch, and a TOY for a low price. And it was awesome. You could ALSO do that today, but today it’s a child-killer, obesity, blah blah blah. And that’s all true.
Sometimes though you have to splurge a little bit and GET some chicken McNuggets. Especially since it’s all white-meat or whatever now. Lord knows how much actual chicken used to be in those bad boys. I’ve gone way too far here, as the meal I’m reviewing has absolutely no chicken in it. So jumping back, today’s meal is meat. Covered with cheese. Served with mashed potatoes. How about THAT? Let’s check this out.
The cheese has BACON in it. This is like a meal based around savory and I love it. In the real world bacon and cheese are two amazing flavors and mixed together? Hell YES. Hopefully that will come across here. The potatoes have been covered numerous times here and hopefully they’re fine. Thepatty could go either way. Hopefully it’s decent. It’s not going to be a high quality beef patty, that’s for sure, but it might be okay. What’s it look like?
Well the patty seems small, but in looking at the box maybe it’s not. There’s a good amount of cheese sauce and more bacon than I expected there to be. The potatoes were fine. They cooked well enough compared to other Banquet meals. None of these meals have potatoes that are going to touch the awesomeness of REAL mashed potatoes, but they’re fine in a pinch.
The patty was, as predicted, not high in quality. It was decent. Not spectacular in any way, mediocre at best. The cheese sauce and bacon was tasty, however. It was thicker than it looked like it would be and both the cheese and the bacon had their individual flavors that mixed together well. It definitely covered up the taste of the patty, which isn’t a bad thing. The nature of the ‘meat’ though is suspect. Something I missed in my initial posting was the fact that they don’t clearly define what the “meat patty” is. This was pointed out to me by reader Forrest.
He made a note, and correctly so, that this isn’t a beef patty. When looking after his comment I found many instances of the patty being comprised of beef and pork and various fillers. However, upon further research this morning it seems Forrest is very correct. The patty is actually made of mechanically separated pork and turkey and many fillers. That’s a real killjoy on this meal that is bringing the star rating down quite a bit. The reason you can’t discern exactly what the patty is is because it’s a mix of a bunch of things…None of which is beef.
Update: All of my coworkers think this is one of the grosser looking meals we’ve had. They seem to think it looks like the box but the box is something they wouldn’t get in the first place. I don’t know, I like the idea. But I’m crazy enough to buy every Banquet meal just to review them. So can I really be trusted? Not even a little.
Rating: 
THREE stars?? I think you’re becoming desensitized to awful food doing all these Banquet ones. That meal looks horrible and the nutritional value cannot be that good. This probably really only deserves two.
This looks like a cheeseburger with no bun!! Is that what you thought? What happened to the bun? If no one is going to eat the bun, can I have it? Thanks!!!!
So far, the only thing it seems like there is to like about these Banquet Meals is the names. “Fish Stick Meal” and “Cheesy Smothered Charbroiled Patty Meal.” They are definitely not trying to class it up. Still…this meal scares me.
If I would have seen the write up for this first and then the picture, I STILL would not have been intrigued enough to buy this.
What makes you think that’s a beef patty? It’s simply a “charbroiled patty.” The only mention of patty contents is fine print that they are “made *with* pork and turkey.” (my emphasis added) Which is code for soybeans and mechanically-separated animal material. Spelling something in a “cute” way is a clever way to trick some people (e.g. “Chick’n”). However, completely omitting what it is from the name is just ridiculous. I couldn’t imagine a more terrifying meal.
Good eye, Forrest. I cannot believe I missed that. Upon reading further it seems To have beef IN it, but is NOT a beef patty. I will amend this entry to reflect that tomorrow. And thanks for reading and keeping us honest. I’m really bummed I missed that. I’ll definitely have to keep a closer eye on these from now on.
Reminds me of the ratburger from Demolition Man. Sly didnt complain.
What the heck… I’ve never even seen this meal. I wonder if it’s only available in the midwest?