This week I reached out for a new and improved — or at least bigger and different — Quarter Pounder with Cheese from the world’s No. 1 burger flipper, McDonald’s, with 36,000 restaurants on the home planet.

Like many McDonald’s customers, the Quarter Pounder patty has put on some weight. It now tips the scales at 4.25 ounces, pre-cooked weight. After frying, it comes in at a tidy, even 3 ounces. The old Quarter Pounder patty yielded a 2.8-ounce burger.

Despite the added heft, McDonald’s is still calling this bellwether burger a Quarter Pounder. That’s all right — not everything is exactly as advertised or named. The Big 10 football conference has 14 teams. The Big 12 conference has 10 teams. Chicken of the Sea isn’t made from chickens. They’d drown.

Here’s the new Quarter Pounder breakdown: a 4.25-ounce all-beef patty with no fillers, extenders or helpers, two slices of melty American cheese, raw slivered onions, tangy pickles, mustard, ketchup, salt and pepper on a toasted sesame-seed bun.

Total calories: 540. Fat grams: 28. Sodium: 1,110 mg. Carbs: 42 g. Dietary fiber: 3 g. Manufacturer’s suggested retail price: $3.69.

McDonald’s has a new way of cooking the Quarter Pounder 2.0. The patty is grilled top and bottom at a higher temperature, which sears the meat, seals in the moisture and produces a juicier burger. The buns are toasted five seconds longer than before, so there’s a little crunch to each bite. I’d toast them five seconds even longer — I like dark-brown toasty buns with a crispy char.

The Quarter Pounder sequel has a new look. The patties are irregularly shaped, to give the appearance of being hand-formed. They’re not, but it’s not a major concern.

Now for the bottom line: Yes, it’s bigger, but is the taste bolder? I ate two new Quarter Pounders in two locations over two days. I bit, I chewed, I savored … I couldn’t taste any difference from the original Q.P. Since I’ve always favored an occasional Quarter Pounder, I’m not complaining.

Curiously, while the Quarter Pounder is expanding, the number of McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. is shrinking. For the first time in decades, there are more McDonald’s stores closing than opening at home. McDonald’s is still on the rise internationally.

The original Quarter Pounder was invented in Fremont, Calif., in 1971 with the slogan “Today Fremont, tomorrow the world.” It was introduced globally a year later. And conquer it did. The Quarter Pounder is the No. 2 burger in McDonald’s arsenal, behind only the Big Mac.

Here’s one for the water cooler: The Big Mac is not the overall top seller at McDonald’s. That honor belongs to those incredible, can’t-stop-eating-them McDonald’s French fries.