Mashed's Exclusive Survey Uncovers The Food Item McDonald's Makes Better Than Anyone Else

McDonald's is certainly one of the most (if not the most) successful fast-food restaurants of all time, with franchises all over the known universe and a "burgers sold" count that's probably already passed from "billions and billions" to trillions, quadrillions, or whatever comes after that. Despite, or because, of this, it doesn't always get much respect. In certain quarters, "McDonald's food" is used as shorthand for cheap, greasy, unhealthy, and everything that is wrong with American society, bla-bla-bla, as per the 2004 documentary "Supersize Me," which may have had issues with accuracy.

In the opposite corner, however, we have Don Gorske, a man who's eaten a Big Mac a day for over 50 years and is doing just fine, thank you. Gorske and his fellow McDonald's fans ignore the naysayers and vote with their feet (and their mouths), keeping the Golden Arches at the top of the fast food chain. Speaking of votes, Mashed recently polled 604 Mickey D's patrons and asked them which menu item the chain pulls off better than any of its competitors. We gave them a choice of five items from which to choose: breakfast sandwiches, burgers, chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches, and french fries. The top vote-getter will come as a surprise to no one – although admittedly we might have had more of a horse race on our hands had we included the McFlurry. It didn't make the cut, though. (Besides, it might take an app to actually find a McFlurry.)

Once you take the ever-elusive McFlurry out of the equation, that leaves just one contender for McDonald's true specialty – and no, we don't mean the Big Mac. Tweaks to the cooking coil may have changed the way McDonald's fries taste in decades past, but that has ultimately not messed with success. Sure, its fries, like all fries, depreciate faster than a new car driven off the lot. But the first 5 minutes when they're fresh out of the fryer are the most magical, according to The Takeout. So much so that 44% of poll respondents unequivocally crown McDonald's as the king of fast food fries.

In second place, with a surprisingly decent showing of 23%, are McDonald's breakfast sandwiches. Okay, maybe it's not so surprising, considering that the McGriddle is an all-in-one breakfast you can eat with one hand. Mickey D's chicken nuggets, too, have their fans, as 16% feel that they're better than any other nuggets out there. Another 9% of respondents rate the Golden Arches burgers as number one, and only 8% declare McDonald's to be the victor in the ongoing chicken sandwich wars. While that item has contributed to booming sales figures in the past, it seems that to date, each of the chain's highly-publicized chicken sandwich mic drops may have turned out to be more of a mic flop for most of these survey takers.