Five Star Big Mac

Two hamburger patties with Thousand Island Dressing and entirely way too much lettuce.  Big Macs are not the sort of fare that you could find at a Five Star Restaurant.  

The town that I live in outside of Raleigh, Apex, actually does not have it's own free standing McDonalds.  There is one McDonald's within the town limits, but it's attached to a BP Gas Station.  Eat at your own risk.  How could we quantify the quality of McDonald's food?  Not sure they appear on the Forbes Travel Guide.  

I consulted Google for a consensus review of a McDonald's restaurant within the Raleigh-Durham area.  Well, Chapel Hill too.  I choose the McDonald's that was closest to each of the major colleges located within each of the three previously mentioned towns.  

They were all close.  

                             

Three stars seems really high.  College kids are being generous.  Chapel Hill's rating could round up to 4 stars?  I'm done with you UNC.  

The Big Mac that I am writing about tonight is definitely worthy of a Five Star rating.  Both in name and in quality.  I like to think of it as a dinner out at my favorite fine eating establishment in the metro Raleigh-Durham area (it's in Durham) that serves some quality French food.  

It's more of a four star restaurant, but it's one of Alex Guarnaschelli's favorite places to eat.  Vin Rougue has a smallish menu, but you can literally order anything and not go wrong.  I usually get a soup or salad, steak and pomme frities, and bread pudding.  

Delicious.  

A few weeks ago I did a little purging from the collection.  I found a few boxes of cards, took a couple of scans, and placed some cards on Ebay.  In the end, there were many cards that left my house, but there was also some money in my Paypal account with no real destination.  So, I decided to find something tasty.  

This looked really good.  

Such a great looking Big Mac.  I like the picture, obviously a Cardinals card, and the design is the usual sort of thing that has been on the Five Star brand the past year or two.  I was never sure about paisley on baseball cards, but it works.  Better than shirts.  Not pictured in the scan is the thickness of the card and quality of the card stock.  The original Five Star cards tended to chip around the edges, but it seems like Topps has done a good job of improving the brand.  

The signature on the card is a little bit different than previous McGwire cards that I own.  This is somewhere between the full McGwire that he used at various times throughout his career.....

This is McGwire's longer signature from an Upper Deck card.....

Overall, I have to say that this Five Star Big Mac card was well worth the money it cost above and beyond the other type of Big Mac.  Plus, I am not a huge fan of the Thousand Island Dressing and gobs of lettuce.  This tasty morsel of cardboard will have a nice home in my collection.