Cheese Melts at McDonald's UK

I agree with that wonderful observation about Europe by Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction: "They got all the same shit we have over here, just somehow it's a little bit different." For that reason, I always end up going to McDonald's whenever I'm in a foreign country just to check out what's different.

On this trip, my favorite non-American McDonald's find was Cheese Melts. Crispy on the outside like a hashbrown, with soft melty cheese on the inside, they are served with sweet chili dip, which was exactly like Thai Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce. Much better than mozzarella sticks in my opinion.

I've noticed that while Americans are purists who only like ketchup on their French fries, the Brits will put anything on chips -- all kinds of flavored ketchups (made by Heinz no less), gravy, curry, chili sauce, etc. Why are we so boring back home?!

Another McDonald's observation: I love McDonald's ice cream cones, but here in Ireland and the UK, you could only get McDonald's ice cream in sundaes, no cones. Odd especially because you can get soft serve ice cream in a cone in just about every gas station or convenience store...

Welcome Back Mega Mac!

So we felt a bit like tourists going to McDonald's while we were in Japan, but the reason for going was more cultural exploring. It being the Japanese holiday Golden Week, all businesses and restaurants were running specials, and Mickey D's was the return of old friend Mega Mac -- a 4 x 4 Big Mac: 4 patties and 4 slices of cheese. As my brother notes, it fixes the poor beef/cheese to bread ratio of the traditional Mac (2:3) tipping the scale to 4:3.


Interesting how in the States McDonald's is trying to shed its fat-promoting image, leaving the pushing of the fat envelope to Burger King, but is happy enough to clog the arteries of Asians.

Also special to McD's Japan is the Ebi Filet-O. Like a Filet-O-Fish, but with a shrimp patty. Pretty tasty, actually, and I appreciated that it had less tartar sauce.