The latest restaurant review by North Dakota's indomitable 88-year-old food critic, Marilyn Hagerty, went viral faster than a salad bar without a sneeze guard.
Hagerty, who broke the Internet in 2012 with her earnest, endearing review of the new Olive Garden in town, doubled down Wednesday with a review of every single McDonald's in Greater Grand Forks. All four of them.
At the McDonald's on South Washington Street, she found the 47-cent senior coffee "strong, but not too hot." Once you've polished off one of the chain's 370-calorie sausage Egg McMuffins, she concludes, "you know you have eaten."
Then there's the McDonald's near Columbia Mall, where she was pleased to note that the latte machine was working and the service was speedy. She paired the latte with "my secret sin -- a big Mac for $4.39." If you're looking for ambience, the McDonald's on Gateway Drive "is the newest and perhaps most attractive McDonald's here."
Hagerty's restaurant reviews have made her a minor celebrity in culinary circles. She's been a guest judge on Top Chef and she released an anthology of her columns that included a foreword by chef Anthony Bourdain, who called it "the antidote to snark."
Hagerty, whose journalism career spans six decades, earned the Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media in 2012.
