The True King, Yaar

George Will via Pejman:

McDonald's has 14,000 restaurants in America and an additional 17,000 in 117 other countries. The company will add 1,000 others in 2008, more than 90 percent of them abroad. Such is the power of the McDonald's brand, 48 percent of the people of India were aware of McDonald's before it opened its first restaurant on the subcontinent.

Why am I hungry all of a sudden?

Comments

[Jauhara al Kafirah]

Not only is McDonald's the Omnipresent Restaurant, they do a magnificent job in local cuisines, too. In France, for example, they provide inexpensive local dishes, made à la McDonaldaise, to the elderly, who can't afford to eat in more expensive digs. Noting how the French didn't seem to mind that several TENS of thousands of their elderly died for lack of air conditioning while their younger family members all collectively went on vacation during a heat wave three weeks into August, many found cool comfort chez McDonalds. Sadder, still, is that McDonalds have been torched in France and vandalized. I have a new respect for this restaurant....if only the local joints here in my neck of the woods could be as well-run.
My twin daughters went to Japan, and the restaurant there is run immaculately. The service is 5 star and the menu has no Supersized options on it. You order à la carte, each item separately, and there are no meal deals. An old concept, to be sure, but a healthy one...and there, MikaDonaru's has sweet potato fries. Talk about yer tasty infidelicacy, mate!

[Isaac Schrödinger]

"In France, for example, they provide inexpensive local dishes, made à la McDonaldaise, to the elderly, who can't afford to eat in more expensive digs."

I used to work on the weekend. To get to the workplace, I took two buses. In between the two, I would grab lunch -- the problem: I would have about 10-15 minutes to do so.

McDonald's to the rescue! It would take less than two minutes for my lunch to be ready and about ten minutes for me to finish it off. It was cheap, fast and exactly what I needed.

"MikaDonaru's has sweet potato fries. Talk about yer tasty infidelicacy, mate!"

Didn't know that McDonald's had such diversified menu items in different nations. It certainly makes good business sense.

By the way, I've only had McDonald's in the Netherlands Schiphol Airport, the US and Canada. The menu was pretty consistent in all those places. Guess there isn't much local demand for other foods there.

[Cafe Alpha]

You made me look up MacDonald's Japan
http://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/

Jesus, look at the megatomago (mega-egg) sandwich (here http://www.megamac.jp/ ) . That's seriously sumo wrestler sized! There's nothing on the American menu that big! Three buns (like a big mac) but three beef paddies, two slices of cheese, bacon, two full stacks of lettuce on the levels of buns and a thick egg patty (two eggs?). And a lunch version with tomato instead of egg. It's a Dagwood.

Oh and it's makudonarudo

[Cafe Alpha]

日本マクドナルド

Notice the Japan "日本" in front of MakuDonarudo, it's just like in Canada where every fucking American company pastes "of Canada" after their name and decorates their bags and stores with enough bright red maple leafs to get them outlawed in Quebec. Or at least they all did that when I was a kid.

Probably they have fleur de lis plastered on everything in Quebec. Safeway of Quebec?

[Cafe Alpha]

Sorry, "Safeway du Québec". And I'm pleased to note that a google search for that turns up empty.

But I was wrong about "Safeway of Canada", they used the same bilingual pidgin that the government uses "Safeway of Canada" has only seven hits, but "Safeway Canada" has 8,440.

They don't use anything as Anglo-centric as the the English word "of"