Mysterious Menus

The folks over at Mental Floss reveal that several American chain restaurants have secret menu items.

This does not mean that Q from MI6 is sitting in the kitchen of an In-and-Out Burger working out ways to build an invisible flamethrower into a Double-Double. Rather, there are apparently several items available at many well-known fast-food eateries that aren't listed on the written menu.

My favourite: Wendy's Gland Slam or "The Meat Cube:" Four square patties on a bun with all the fixins. Not that'd I'd actually eat one, myself, due to my fear of sudden meat-related heart failure, but the idea is stupendous.

Still, the Mental Floss article reveals a decided lack of imagination on the part of the restaurant chains. A tiny cup of Starbucks coffee? Small jitters, so to speak. They could do much better than this on the old secret menus.

So, here are a few suggestions:

• McDonald's Secret Salad Shake - Who cares about a simple Neapolitan shake? McDonald's should offer their salad line as a series of fiberiffic milkshakes. Get your ice-cream and your veggies in one go. Who hasn't dreamed of lettuce you can eat with a straw?
• Starbucks Caffeine Explosion - The mother of all espressos: Espresso-energy drink-Jolt cola combo. The whipped cream topping is optional, not that you'd notice the sugar rush in this case.
• Pizza Hut Sliders - Little bite-sized pizzas with onions and cheese that you can scarf like Milk Duds at Halloween. Comes in plates of 10, 20, 50, and 250. Anchovies optional, as usual.
• Outback Half-a-Cow - Plenty of chicken places offer half a chicken, so why can't a steak place offer the same with a cow. Surely, this wouldn't be any more calories than the giant steak at Big Texan in Amarillo? Sweetbreads and "oysters" very optional.
• Waffle House Smothered with Everything - You can already get hashbrowns smothered with onions, cheese, and a few other things. Why not extend that to everything in the restaurant. Bacon? Chili? Coffee? Toast? Belgian Waffles? Packets of saccharine? Sprite? All of the above? You got it, hon!
• Kentucky Fried Candy - What if KFC took the British novelty of frying up candy bars and applied their own 11 herbs and spices and extra-crispy batter? I mean besides a dramatic increase in dine-in cardiac arrests?
• Burger King Creepy Meal - By this I mean that every normal menu item come in optional packaging that prominently features the very disturbing Burger King himself. You know the character. He's the one who's been sneaking around in people's homes and behaving ever so perversely. The adverts are creepy, so why shouldn't the meals be too?