McDonald's customers slam Szechuan sauce as 'overrated' and 'the biggest disappointment in my life' after 'Rick and Morty' riots

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

McDonald's Szechuan sauce debuted to lukewarm reviews.

• Szechuan sauce returned to McDonald's menus across the US on Monday.
• While a few people loved the sauce, most said it failed to live up to its heavily-hyped expectations.
• "Rick and Morty" fans rioted in October after the fast-food chain gave away Szechuan sauce across the US - and demand far exceeded supply.

McDonald's Szechuan sauce didn't get the celebration the fast-food giant hoped for when it returned to menus on Monday.

After months of petitions by "Rick and Morty" fans, bidding wars, and riots in fast-food parking lots, some McDonald's customers found the Szechuan sauce to be disappointing.

A few people straight-up hated the Szechuan sauce.

"I would rather dip a nugget in bigfoots butt crack than ever taste this swill again," one commenter wrote on McDonald's Facebook page.

Twitter ItsRetroNemo

However, most customers were more tempered in their response.

Twitter SauceBroTv

Twitter KrypTanko

"I got some this time," another Facebook commenter wrote. "It was pretty good but people if you don't get any trust me it's not worth rioting over."

Twitter RichardOnTwitch

Twitter bostonfoodadv

A handful of people truly loved the sauce.

"Guys just tried this sauce for the first time ... its the best thing you guys have ever done!" one commenter wrote on Facebook.

Twitter fromelette

The reality is that it would be hard for McDonald's to produce a sauce that lived up to the hype.

McDonald's locations literally had to call the police because "Rick and Morty" fans were rioting when they didn't get a taste of the sauce. DJ deadmau5 spent roughly $15,000 on a jug of the stuff.

Business Insider taste testers described the Szechuan sauce as a mix of classic suburban, American-Chinese restaurants' sweet-and-sour chicken with some soy sauce and a hint of sesame. All in all, it was fine - but nothing special.

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

McDonald's Szechuan sauce

"It's goopy, sweet, and very salty - and, in its own right, it's a pretty tasty option," we wrote in our review of the sauce. "We aggressively dunked and quickly downed 40 nuggets doused in the Szechuan sauce, so we can promise that it's tasty, and you'll want to keep on dipping."

The return of Szechuan sauce was sparked by "Rick and Morty" fans' demands. The limited-menu item from the '90s had appeared in an episode of the Adult Swim show.

In October, McDonald's gave away the sauce at select locations after some fans of "Rick and Morty" bid thousands of dollars to get the select jugs of Szechuan sauce released by the fast-food giant.

"Rick and Morty" fans swarmed to those locations, only to find that each restaurant had only 20 to 40 sauce packets and 10 special-edition posters. The diehard fans, some of whom had shown up at the locations as early as 4 a.m., were furious at McDonald's.

Ultimately, Szechuan sauce was about "Rick and Morty" - not the taste of the sauce itself. So, any McDonald's customer hoping that the sauce would live up to the hype based on taste alone was sure to be disappointed.

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