There seems to be another fast food item that's been blowing up the corners of the internet that I inhabit, so I had to take my crack at it. I purposely didn't read anything about this before I came into it, just a few pretty non-descript headlines saying that it exists. So I came into this with an open mind. Burger King has actually introduced three of these melts. I got the original, as that only seemed right. There are also bacon and spicy options. I'm not entirely sure what goes into the spicy version and I'm not super motivated to find out, frankly. So, if that's your jam, you'll have to do your own investigation. As far as the original goes, the BK site says it "features two slices of toast, layered with 1/4 lb. of flame-grilled beef, melty American cheese, caramelized onions and stacker sauce." That is their capitalization, by the way. I guess their stacker burgers with their version of special sauce is generic now. If you don't know, the stacker sauce is essentially the same thing as the sauce on a Big Mac, which is essentially jazzed-up Thousand Island dressing. I don't think that comes as a surprised to anybody at this point, but I just wanted to point it out for completeness' sake. If you're wondering, there is an official McDonald's recipe from the 60's that is floating around the internet if you're curious. Anyway, enough about McDonald's. I'm sure I've already mentioned them far too much in an article about Burger King. As far as this sandwich goes, I thought it was pretty good, though I found it awfully sweet. I get why the sauce was included here, it probably would have been too dry otherwise, but I did find the sweet from the sauce paired with the sweet from the caramelized onions was a bit much. Not enough to ruin it, but definitely enough to wish I could dial it back. I don't have a better suggestion, but I'm sure Burger King has some chefs somewhere that might have another idea. That said, I'm usually not a huge fan of onions. I handle them much better these days than I did when I was younger, but they still aren't my favorite. A patty melt kinda needs those onions by definition, though, and I didn't mind them here. They were well caramelized, no raw ones slipped through. So I appreciated the effort here, and I appreciated that they went with toast instead of putting it on a regular bun. That's another must for a patty melt for me. It was good, buttery toast, too. Many times the best thing you can say about fast food bread is you didn't notice it, but here it was actively helping the situation. The most baffling, and in many ways the most disappointing, thing was the meat itself. It tasted fine. If you've had Burger King patties before, you know what they taste like. The words flame broiled probably give you the faint taste of BK alone. So that wasn't really the problem, but I think I would dispute calling this a Whopper. It doesn't use Whopper patties, instead opting for two Whopper Jr. patties, which I believe are also used for their regular burgers. How can you call it a Whopper without using a Whopper patty? Seems like false advertising to me. I don't really know why they went that route. Was it too difficult to find toast that size? I don't know, but it was the first thing I noticed and the thing I kept thinking about the whole time I at the thing. So, end of the day, the Whopper Melt was okay. Not great, it could use some better balancing. But it's fine. But it's also not a Whopper, and I think that's its greatest sin. I'm so happy to be making this post. If this post isn't enough of a tip-off, Wabash managed to beat both Williams and Illinois Wesleyan this past weekend, so they are now moving on to Fort Wayne for the D3 Final Four. I won't linger too long on this intro, but I will admit that I'm a bit mixed on the potential of having a Wabash-Marietta final. When I was on/in charge of the disc team, we were always really close to Marietta and got to know them awfully well, and we always played in each other's tournaments and coordinated in playing in a lot of other tournaments. So, I will say that, if Wabash can't win the thing, I hope Marietta does it. So, without further ado, here are the quick facts about the final four schools and the arena in Fort Wayne. Allen Co. War Memorial ColiseumLocation: Fort Wayne, IN Capacity: 13,000 Built: 1952 Main Tenants: Fort Wayne Komets (East Coast Hockey League), Fort Wayne Mad Ants (G-League) Elmhurst University BluejaysLocation: Elmhurst, IL Arena: R.A. Faganel Hall Capacity: 1800 Built: 1983 CCIW Regular Season Titles: 1 (2001) CCIW Tournament Titles: 2 (2020, 2022) National Titles: 0 21-22 Record: 26-6 Marietta College PioneersLocation: Marietta, OH Arena: Ban Johnson Arena Capacity: 1457 Built: 1929 Ohio Athletic Conference Titles: 5 (2011, 2013, 2017, 2021, 2022) National Titles: 0 21-22 Record: 29-2 Randolph-Macon College Yellow JacketsLocation: Ashland, VA Arena: Crenshaw Gymnasium Capacity: 1400 Built: 1964 Old Dominion Athletic Conference Titles: 9 (1990, 1991, 2003, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2020, 2021, 2022) National Titles: 0 21-22 Record: 31-1 Wabash College Little GiantsLocation: Crawfordsville, IN
Arena: Chadwick Court Capacity: 1800 Built: 1917 NCAC Titles: 1 (2022) National Titles: 1 (1982) 21-22 Record: 28-3 Wabash has made the second weekend of the D3 NCAA tournament, so I suppose that means it's time to do another round of team information. Wabash plays Williams College on Friday in the Sweet 16. That winner will get the winner of (the host) Illinois Wesleyan and Wheaton in the Elite 8 on Saturday. One thing of note, the Collegiate Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) is an old conference, going back to the '40's. They did not start having a conference basketball tournament until 2006, so that accounts for IWU and Wheaton's extra lines.. The New England Small College Athletic Conference has a similar history, founded in the 70's, but not holding a tournament until 2001. That said, I couldn't seem to find any archival information before 2001 online, so Williams did not get that extra line. Illinois Wesleyan University TitansLocation: Bloomington, IL Arena: Shirk Center Capacity: 2600 Built: 1994 CCIW Regular Season Titles: 31 (1949, 1954, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2013, 2014, 2018, 2022) CCIW Tournament Titles: 1 (2021) National Titles: 1 (1997) 21-22 Record: 23-5 Wabash College Little GiantsLocation: Crawfordsville, IN Arena: Chadwick Court Capacity: 1800 Built: 1917 NCAC Titles: 1 (2022) National Titles: 1 (1982) 21-22 Record: 24-3 Wheaton College ThunderLocation: Wheaton, IL Arena: King Arena Capacity: 2600 Built: 2000 CCIW Regular Season Titles: 10 (1948, 1953, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1996, 1999, 2009, 2021) CCIW Tournament Titles: 2 (2009, 2014) National Titles: 0 21-22 Record: 22-6 Williams College EphsLocation: Williamstown, MA Arena: Chandler Gym Capacity: 1853 Built: 1987 NESCAC Tournament Titles: 5 (2003, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2018) National Titles: 1 (2003) 21-22 Record: 19-4 If you've been reading the local papers, you might have seen Wabash earned their first NCAA tournament berth since 1998. They won their first NCAC regular season and tournament titles this year. I've been watching Wabash basketball since 2002, which means I have seen two of their previous three NCAC tournament championship trips, where they all came up short. This year was different. They played Wooster, a perennial NCAC power. After leading for most of the game, things got tight fast towards the end of the half and ended up going to overtime. While Wabash never really got a big lead, they more or less took care of business in the extra period, with a lot of credit going to clutch free throw shooting by Ahmoni Jones. It was a great game, and if you have some time, I highly recommend going back to watch it. So now that one big monkey is off the program's back, now it's time to see if we can have a repeat of 1982. Jack Davidson is a much different player than Pete Metzelaars, but basketball is also a much different game than it was forty years ago. In 1982, the championship game was held at Calvin College in Grand Rapids. If this year's team were to make the finals, they would play in the Allen Co. War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne. Those are both pretty short trips from Crawfordsville, but if they're going to make it that far, they've got at least one pretty good road trip to go. For the opening two rounds, Wabash has drawn into a group hosted by Emory College in Atlanta. Wabash vs. Emory seems to be a likely second round matchup, and they actually played each other early in the year, Wabash winning 98-90. That game was at a neutral site in Marietta (OH), though. Wabash plays Berry College tomorrow at 4:40, and it will be streamed. I really wanted to make the trip, but just couldn't swing it on that short of notice. In any case, I thought it might be worth taking a look at the teams in Wabash's pod. One important note. I wanted to include how many total bids each school has, but I couldn't find a good source with complete brackets for every D3 tournament, just championship game appearances. If somebody at the NCAA could break into their archives and make that information available somewhere, I would be pretty grateful. Averett University CougarsLocation: Danville, VA Arena: E. Stuart James Grant Center Capacity: 2500 Built: 1998 USA South Titles: 5 (1990, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2022) National Titles: 0 21-22 Record: 17-11 Berry College VikingsLocation: Mount Berry, GA Arena: Cage Center Capacity: 1900 Built: 2007 Southern Athletic Association Titles: 3 (2018, 2021, 2022) National Titles: 0 21-22 Record: 23-2 Emory College EaglesLocation: Atlanta, GA Arena: Woodruff Center Capacity: 2000 Built: 1983 University Athletic Association Titles: 8 (1989, 1990, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2022) National Titles: 0 21-22 Record: 19-5 Wabash College Little GiantsLocation: Crawfordsville, IN Arena: Chadwick Court Capacity: 1800 Built: 1917 North Coast Athletic Conference Titles: 1 (2022) National Titles: 1 (1982) 21-22 Record: 24-3 |
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