This burger’s a player with layers

EARLIER this year, Wendy’s appeased fast-food critics by introducing their lower-fat Frescata deli sandwiches and adding healthier choices to their kids’ menu. Now they’re back doing what they do best -- creating oversized, fatty, artery-clogging burgers with their trademark square patties.

Witness the half-pound Jalapeno Cheddar Double Melt: a double-meat burger with jalapenos, bacon, pepper-jack cheese and cheddar cheese sauce. Sounds fairly normal, right? Well, here’s the gimmick. Instead of putting the peppers, bacon, and cheese on top of the hamburger patties like a regular burger, they’re sticking them in between the two quarter-pound patties.

That’s it. That’s the gimmick. Roll with it.

---

Half-Pound Jalapeno Cheddar Double Melt

Taste***

Though the jalapenos are on the mild side, this is still a fun, decadent burger. It joins a growing trend among fast-food giants to unapologetically unleash huge burgers to the public without anything remotely healthy like lettuce or tomato getting in the way. By comparison, it’s tastier than Burger King’s BK Stacker, but not quite up to Jack in the Box’s Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger.

Diet Watch*

Just the thought of it will blow your diet. There are 760 calories, 41 grams of fat, 41 grams of carbohydrates and 1,610 milligrams of sodium. You can save a few calories by ordering it without bacon. Or cheese. Or beef.

Portability***

Wrapped in foil, this burger will travel. The peppers and bacon don’t fall out because they’re sandwiched between the beef patties, and the patties are sandwiched inside the bun. It’s a sandwich within a sandwich!

Hype-o-meter*

Despite two commercials, in-store posters and glamour photos to the contrary, some local Wendy’s employees are instructed to not glop the cheddar cheese sauce between the two hamburger patties. Instead, they’re told to spread it onto the inside of the bun, making a mockery of the “melted middle” marketing campaign. That ain’t right! This sort of thing would never happen if founder Dave Thomas were still alive.

---

* Ratings are on a scale of one (lowest) to four (best).