Food and movie tie-ins have existed for decades, from E.T.'s Reese's Pieces to McDonald's ill-advised Batman Returns Happy Meal that led to the Schumacher-ization of the first Batman franchise to that beloved tonic of '90s kids, the Ghostbusters/Hi-C collab Ecto-Cooler. In recent years, movie food tie-ins have come in the form of elaborate themed menus featuring variations on established fare. Which brings us to the Mandalorian and Grogu tie-in at Burger King.
Burger King is no stranger to either the movie or Star Wars tie-in game, having (in)famously debuted Whoppers with freakishly-colored buns (such as the red bun-ed Across the Spider-Verse Whopper) and being responsible for some of the most collectible of all Star Wars restaurant tie-ins, the original Star Wars collector glasses released in the fall of 1977.
The Mandalorian and Grogu tie-in channels a bit of both those approaches (though without any garishly-colored buns, thankfully), offering up both loosely-themed menu items and unique collectibles. And because I love Star Wars in all its licensed tie-in excess and am a glutton for both garbage fast food and intestinal punishment, I decided to check out the entirety of the Mandalorian and Grogu Burger King menu and share my thoughts with you. How do the different items stack up against each other? Is anything so good it's worth a trip to your local BK (let alone a galaxy far, far away)?
The Bounty Bundle
Rather than be a weirdo eating a $24 fast mood meal/sodium explosion all by myself (and because my kids are mildly-obsessed with Burger King; I get it, they have a cool play place), I decided to drag my entire family into my culinary adventure. And so it was that me, my wife, and our two boys (ages eleven and five) trundled into the local Burger King in Rosemount, MN for lunch on Saturday afternoon, in the name of art (and hunger, and a cool play place).
I have a ... complicated relationship with my local Burger King. My oldest doesn't eat meat, but does love a fast food cheese sandwich (cheeseburger, just cheese, ketchup and bun) and despite the fact that it's one of the two same employees working every time we go there and the entire chain's slogan is "have it your way," they still seem to look at me like a crazy person when I place his order and routinely struggle to get it right on the first try (sidebar: the Burger King app is hot garbage when it comes to customizations, especially for the "have it your way" restaurant. Know whose app is fantastic? McDonald's. You can customize the shit out of everything). This time out, they managed to get our order right (with one notable exception we'll get to), so ... points for that, I guess?
Also, when I ordered the "Bounty Bundle," the person taking the order responded with, "you mean the big one?" with a note of wide-eyed incredulity, and I'm sure he just wanted to make sure I knew I was ordering a $24 combo meal. But it also carried an air of "your funeral…" to it. Honestly? I can respect that.
BBQ Bounty Whopper
A 1/4 lb. of 100% flame-grilled beef served in a carton shaped like the Mandalorian’s helmet, topped with melty Swiss cheese, crispy pickle chips, bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, & creamy Bounty BBQ sauce on a bun.
First up in the gut-busting Bounty Bundle is the BBQ Bounty Whopper. Riffs on the Whopper are a staple of Burger King's various themed tie-in meals. As far as fast food burgers go, the OG Whopper is a pretty solid burger, second only to Wendy's (don't at me about In-and-Out; I'm a Midwesterner, but I've had your West Coast "animal style" burger and it's aggressively fine). That said, while I love a good cheeseburger from a proper restaurant, I detest the plasticy, tasteless cheese that gets put on most fast food burgers and usually ask for it to be removed (a request that consistently stymies most restaurants, as if the very thought that someone wouldn't want their gross-ass cheese is incomprehensible). But in the name of art, I ordered the BBQ Bounty Burger exactly as is described in the official BK description.
It was fine. I'm not sure what makes this BBQ sauce any creamier than a regular BBQ sauce, but it tastes like BBQ sauce. The crispy pickle chips are the clear standout, giving the burger some crunch and a nice textural contrast. But there's nothing "must-have" about this Whopper variant, and I'd frankly have preferred a regular one.
Grade: 5/10
Grogu's Garlic Chicken Fries
Crispy Chicken Fries breaded with parmesan & garlic seasoning & served with garlic sauce in a Grogu carton.
Burger King's chicken nuggets are underrated; they're a clear third behind McDonald's (the gold standard of pureed chicken parts shaped into a nugget form and fried) and Wendy's, but it's a solid third place. Their chicken fries, meanwhile, are basically the answer to the question, "What if chicken nuggets, but shaped like a mozzarella stick?" They have their diehard fans, and while I don't necessarily yearn for them, they're a solid fast food item and a worthy alternative to the traditional nugget.
This Mandalorian and Grogu-themed version of them adds some garlic and parmesan seasoning to the batter, a relatively subtle change that nevertheless results in the best (savory) part of the Bounty Bundle. What is the connection between garlic chicken fries and Grogu? I have no idea. Is Grogu Italian? Will that be the big reveal of the film? Or is this just a case of, "Hey, 'Grogu' starts with a G and so does garlic, so alliteration for the win!"? I suspect it's that. At any rate, they're tasty.
Less tasty is the special garlic sauce that comes with them. It's basically a version of (or the same thing as) the garlic sauce you can get at Papa Johns (the current version, not the old oily one that had to be shaken up to mix the different parts together). In addition to its unpleasantly pasty color and aggressive saltiness, its taste is less "garlic" and more "garlic-adjacent", like it's someone's idea of garlic. It also has an unpleasant viscosity, falling somewhere between "sauce" and "butter." The Garlic Chicken Fries would be much better served dipped into some kind of marinara.
Grade: 6/10 (Chicken Fries), 0/10 (dipping "sauce").
Imperial Cheddar Ranch Tots
Perfectly crispy tots stuffed with melty cheddar cheese, fluffy potatoes, & ranch seasoning, served in a Star Wars themed carton.
In lieu of french fries, the Bounty Bundle includes an Imperial-themed variation on the chain's tater tots (which are more like potato croquettes than traditional tater tots). As with the Garlic Chicken Fries, I have no idea what about "cheddar" and "ranch" screams "Imperial," especially since this pairing of food and Star Wars tie-in doesn't even have alliteration as an excuse. Perhaps this is subtle commentary from someone in the BK design kitchen about the relative condiment dominance of ranch.
Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of Burger King's cheesy tots (see above: re: gross-ass fast food cheese products), and nothing about these changed my mind. The cheese isn't distinctly "cheddar" flavored and the ranch flavoring was fairly subtle (dipping it in some ranch helped, but dipping anything in ranch will help it taste more like ranch). The whole thing was also very dry, especially for a product purported to contain melty cheese. Ultimately, these tasted like salty sawdust more than anything.
Grade 2/10.
Grogu's Blue Cookie Shake
Creamy vanilla soft serve mixed with blue sugar cookie syrup & topped with Grogu’s favorite snack - blue cookies!
This is the item in the Bounty Bundle with the most direct/obvious connection to the film's title characters. Everyone loved when adorable little Grogu used the Force to grab those blue cookies that one time! That's an easy thing to turn into a shake, and it at least makes more sense than Imperial tater tots.
The shake I received with my Bounty Bundle was a perfectly adequate fast food shake, though it neither looked nor tasted much like what I was expecting based on the description. My eleven year old loved it so much he wanted to get his own, and when we ordered one to go for him as we were leaving, I learned the truth: somewhere along the way, the BK staff dropped a regular cookies-and-cream milkshake (in a themed cup) onto our tray instead of the Blue Cookie Shake. This was immediately apparent thanks to the vibrant blue color and crumbled up cookie bits in the second shake.
The actual Blue Cookie Shake was pretty good. Exceedingly sweet, almost like drinking melted frosting, but in small enough amounts, it was pleasantly satisfying. And like the crispy pickles in the Whopper, when a bit of the crumbled up cookie made its way into the straw, it created a pleasing textural contrast while amping up the sugar cookie taste. In a twist, the eleven year old did NOT like this shake, and so my wife and I ended up splitting it. In terms of both flavor and tie-in relevance, this item is the clear winner.
Grade: 7/10
The Stuff
Where Burger King's Mandalorian and Grogu tie-ins really shine is the stuff. Not necessarily the kids meal toys or the collectible cups — more on those shortly — but the fact that every food item comes in its own distinct, themed packaging, from the Mandalorian helmet-inspired Whopper box to the Stormtrooper adorning the container of the Imperial tots. Additionally, both the Bounty Bundle and the kids meal (the five year old, bouncing between cheeseburger and chicken nuggets of late, selected chicken nuggets this time out) came in their own themed boxes. Plus, at least at my local BK, the cross-sell signage was everywhere, the restaurant's "Have it your way" slogan integrated with the Mandalorian "This is the way" creed to create "Have It The Way." Even Burger King's signature crowns were updated in both Grogu and Mandalorian versions (both my boys chose Grogu).
In terms of more permanent stuff, each kid's meal comes with a themed toy, though all of the potential options fall closer to "collectible figurine" than actual toy, as none really do anything (we got the Grogu-in-hoverpram).
Better are the collectible glasses. While the initial press release regarding the promotion seemed to suggest these cups would be made of a thin metal, they are in fact plastic, but possessing an aesthetically-pleasing metallic shine. While a metal — or even better, in a callback to the very first BK Star Wars tie-in, glass — cup would be better, as collectible cups go, this is a solid entry that will look nice next to my Phantom Menace-era Pizza Hut Yoda cup with the straw in his back ("Drink from my back you will!"). Best of all, the cup came empty and wrapped in plastic, so I didn't need to clean out any sticky pop or shake residue.
Collective grade for the non-food portions: 7/10.
Final Verdict
If I average out the score, it comes to 4.5/10, which feels about right: the shake, chicken fries, and assorted stuff are all pretty solid, while the garlic sauce is an abomination against humanity dragging the whole thing down. I'm certainly hard pressed to recommend anyone submit to consuming the entirety of the Bounty Bundle for the sake of anything but art. Yet if you happen to be driving by a Burger King on your way to or from Mandalorian and Grogu, you could do worse than to grab a Blue Cookie shake or some Garlic Grogu fries — and, of course, a crown.
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