McDonalds - Just a Franchise?

Being a TCK does come with it's perks, no matter how emo I can get about my situation.
One of the never ending perks, are the comparisons between everything and anything.

Take McDonalds. It's virtually impossible to go anywhere without glancing at those huge double yellow arches.

What's on the menu, however, can reveal the very essence of the country that allowed McDonalds to reach its shores.

Anyone with a TV in their house will probably be all too familiar with the programme 'Super Size Me' where a guy had the all fattening diet of McDonalds burgers in Super Size for a month in North America. The rest of the world can only gape in awe at the size of the burgers, and wonder why famine and world hunger is such a huge problem.

In the Philippines, McDonalds is more commonly known as McDo [pronounced Mac-dOH], although Jubilee tends to be more popular than this hugely international franchise. I can barely remember what was served in the Filipino franchise, but I think they had some kind of mango pudding which makes the mouth of every filo water. Or maybe I'm thinking about Jubilee again.

In Malaysia, all burgers have no pork in them, and regularly advertises their Prosperity Burgers every Chinese New Year. The properity of these burgers is, however questionable, and it is suspected that the managers of the Malaysian branch of McDonalds are in fact the ones becoming more prosperous. McDonalds is more popularly known as 'McDs', and widely attracts customers because of their ice-creams, not their burgers. They have also been known to sell 'Bubur Ayam' which is basically chicken congee. They don't taste very nice.

Indonesia presumably has a similar menu to Malaysia, and I can't imagine how different the menu might be. Unless Indonesia decides to take chicken and burgers to new heights to do a rendang sapi burger.

Hong Kong also features Chicken Congee on the menu, although as I have never tried it, I cannot comment on the tastefulness of the dish. News has also reached me, saying that Hong Kong also serves dim sum in their McDonald chains. Instant dim dum? Fast food dim sum? Char siew, siew mai, ha kau, egg tarts...instant style? In Hong Kong? When you could walk across the road and get better stuff, probably for cheaper? This is just really strange...

In Australia, McDonalads in known as 'Mackkers', or something similar to those lines. It features a cafe within its outlets, known as McCafe, allowing consumers to believe that it is in fact a classy restaurant, and not some 'fast food chain'. Burger boxes all insist that the beef used is 'purely Australian beef' and never fail to be proud of that fact. Moo.

South Africa's McDonalds remains on a low key, and only occasionally resurfaces to face up to the likes of Wimpy's, but quickly backs down again after a while. They are able to maintain their success in South Africa purely by the knowledge that if every other McDonalds in the world can survive, then so can they. [Well, I guess South Africans can be partial to a McDs burger sometimes] The smoothies and milkshakes featured on the menu of this quiet franchise however, are to be highly commended. In other words - I can't get enough of their berry shakes!

In Canada, the menu appears to be strikingly similar to North America, and I quote Chris, who recently messaged me with a: 'They have PORK in McDs...and BACON!'. Let it be known that possibly every McDonalds in the world has bacon in their burgers, save Muslim countries such as Malaysia [where Chris and I lived for a while] and so on and so forth.

And just for the record - YES burgers do taste better when there's bacon in them. :P

I love doing little comparisons like these, especially when McDonalds is the giant of all fast food chains. I mean, there's not much comparison to be done with KFC [Malaysia may indeed be the only one crazy enough to do KFC hainanese chicken rice]. The 'Burger King' corporation might have quite a few differences, but what with all the different names in each country, it'd be difficult to talk about. Just a tad too many differences.

But if anyone has any interesting stories about their encounters with the many different McDonald restaurants all over the world...gimme a shout. I'd love to hear about your experiences. =)

Mishy <3