I never rarely indulge in punish my body with fast food, but recently, after a long day of dealing with used car salesmen, a little Frosty and chicken nugget orgy sounded way better than actually cooking something.
Sometime back in April Wendy's introduced a new line of "Signature Sides" including mac and cheese, one of my many food weaknesses. (There's also a baked sweet potato with cinnamon "buttery spread" and chili freaking cheese fries, which, by the way, stoners have been DIYing via the drive-through for years.) They're all priced at $2.49, or a buck if you substitute them for fries in a combo meal.
And you know what? The mac and cheese is pretty damn delicious.
The cavatappi pasta is pretty far past al dente (and if you go in expecting that you're probably the kind of person that only drinks Fiji water and brings a spritzer of truffle oil to the theater for your popcorn) but the cheese sauce is smooth and creamy, and there's plenty of it coating the tender noodles.
It's perfectly cheesy in that artery clogging, no nutritional value whatsoever sort of way, though it's apparently made with real Vermont cheddar and milk; I'd rate it several rungs above the blue box or Kraft Dinner of my youth. They even melt some shredded cheese on top to give it that stringy-cheese-on-the-fork, food porn-y effect.
The only thing it's missing is a little textural contrast from breadcrumbs or a crispy broiled top, but I realize that's a pretty tall order for everyone's favorite crimson-braided drive-through princess. I recommend you gild the proverbial lily and throw some Cheetos on top when you get home.
Congratulations, you just achieved a 7.6 on the Food Shame Scale.
