France - McDonald's menu is SUPER FANCY

When burgers are too mainstream, we go for baguettes. The normal burgers still exist in McDonald's in Paris but why not try something that only exist in Paris? Well, I decided to get le petite McBaguette.

And what they mean by petite (small) is... REALLY PETITE. The whole baguette fits into my palm, so I would say it's like 10cm x 10cm. It's smaller than the size of a postcard. Yup. It's yummy, ,though. The beef flavour was strong, and the baguette is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside..

Why did I get such a small baguette for lunch? It's because the McCafe right next to the entrance looks enticing. They sell macarons, chou and other fancy cakes. I got the chou sans créme (chou without cream) and the pistachio macaron.

The macaron was so-so. It's a little too cold when served, so the cream filling was a little too hard, and the shell was a little too moist.

On the other hand, the chou was really good:

The moment I bit the chou, the dough kind of slowly melted in my mouth. It's really fluffy. I think I might prefer a chou without the cream filling.

Well, it's fancy and it's nice, and it also comes with a pricey bill (for a McDonald's standard). The whole thing costed me like 5 euros, and my stomach was not in particular full enough. Normally I could get a meal for 5 euros and feel very stuffed.

But it's the quality vs. the quantity.

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Ireland - McDonald's Menu

Last year I think I said I'm not eating anything from Mc Donald's unless I have to. Well, I've seen interesting items on the Dutch and German menu, so I thought maybe I'll see something special in Ireland.

I went in and looked for the menu, but I didn't see anything particularly highlighted. Also, there is no Easy Order system like I saw in the Netherlands. 

The only eye-catching item on the menu when I went there last week was the Bacon Chicken Onion burger.

What could be missing from a full meal course? Well, on this one, I'd say the texture was a little too boring. The chicken was nice and crispy, but it's so thin that I didn't feel the juiciness from the chicken. The bacon was not too dry or anything like that but it was still dry and bacon is somewhat brittle and chewy. The lettuce was crispy at all. The only non-crispy thing was the bread. Basically, almost everything was crispy and dry.

There's nothing fancy in Ireland's Mc Donald's, so I won't be coming back there for the second time. There are still many traditional Irish food that I haven't tried, why waste my stomach on Mc Donald's? I will be gone in less than two months and getting Irish visa isn't that easy.

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The Netherlands - McDonald Easy Order System

What to do when your tummy rumbles so badly but it's dinner time and there are at least 5 people waiting in every line in McDonalds? Cut the queue. Legally, of course. Life in the Netherlands without a debit card (they call it PIN here; there's a chip attached to the card, which is not very common for a debit card in the US or perhaps Asia) is almost like cashless, especially in my university. School cafetaria and even vending machines don't accept cash. My first week in the Netherlands was tough; we had to buy Chipknip, which acts like a cash card. However, you cannot top it up; you buy those cards in 5 euros, 10 euros or 20 euros, and if you can't finish the balance inside the card, you can't get it out. I have been very fortunate to spend every single cent on my 10 euros Chipknip card three times so I didn't waste any money. Well, now that I have my debit card, I can say goodbye to Chipknips.

This was not the first time I saw the Easy Order machines in McDonalds. I had intended to order my burger the conventional way but the queues were too long and I was dying for a bite of juicy beef patty. Or fries. Anything. I was extremely hungry. So there were two options: wait in the line, or spend some time figuring out how the machine works.

Surprisingly, the machine was very easy to use. Insert a card, select a language (thank God it has English), select the menu from various categories (burgers, specials, drinks, etc.) and indicate how many of each item to order. Press the Pay button, enter your debit card PIN number, and get the receipt.

There is a special corner that says "EASY ORDER", and you just have to go there and pick up your order in less than 1-2 minutes (if the items you ordered are available). I'm not sure if they put top priority for EASY ORDER but I was satisfied with the service speed. And I think I saved about 15-20 minutes (I skipped about 3-4 people on the queue).

Oh, an the monitor above the EASY ORDER counter serves as a monitor for the waiting list, so you know when your turn to pick up the food is :)

This is definitely a really cool system. People might be reluctant to use it because there isn't any instructions nearby (because you really don't need written instructions; the machine is so easy to figure out). 

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Germany - McDonald's Menu

I'm back with stories when I was in Germany! We made a short break at McDonalds in between the long drive from the Netherlands. And of course, as usual, I tried to look for the special menu in Germany's McDonalds. I found this:

I'm not sure what the German words say but on the menu it says Big South Africa Big Mac. 

The bread was coated with some sort of spices. With beef patties, lettuce, tomato and cheese covered in somehow spicy paprika sauce. I expected the bread to be somehow better because German breads are really famous. Unfortunately I am not a bread expert because my primary carbohydrate source is still rice and noodles (maybe pasta), so I can't really tell a difference.

There are also other unique menus like Big Argentina Barbecue and Wan Tan (funny how they sell fried Chinese dumplings in Germany - I doubt China's McDonalds have these).

Surprisingly, I don't see anything related to wurst or any other German sausages. No sauerkrauts (sour, fermented cabbage) as well.

What about the fries?

 HUGE.

And actually we were a little disappointed because the fries were not up to standard. They were flimsy and not crispy :( I don't know if it's the same across Germany or we were just unlucky, but these fries were definitely not good.

Inside McDonalds, we also found McCafe. And what's interesting is that the McCafe here sells bubble tea! And the choices are actually in English, so it was fairly easy to read.

What puzzles me was the fact that you have to add an extra flavor syrup for everything, including milk tea. I mean, originally, in Asia, when you ordered bubble milk tea, you don't put any flavorings unless it's stated in the menu. Milk tea means milk, tea and sugar, and nothing else. I was forced to add a flavor to my milk tea (I guess I could refuse but I paid for it, so why shouldn't I add a flavor?). The only flavor that makes sense was vanilla. I don't want to add anything like mango and citrus flavors into my milk tea.

In the end I bought hibiscus milk tea because I've had hibiscus tea before and I liked it, but I haven't tried adding milk to hibiscus tea. Hibiscus tea is generally very fruity; sometimes acidic and if you don't add sugar it is quite astringent. Drinking hibiscus tea with sugar feels like drinking some kind of red-fruit juice because of its color and its taste.

And here, they don't sell tapioca pearls but BOBA (small gel balls that are still liquid on the inside but a firm gel on the outside - a product made with alginate gel). I had a bad experience with chocolate-flavored BOBA, so I decided to add strawberry-flavored BOBA to my hibiscus milk tea.

I forgot to take a picture before I drank it because I was too hungry at that time.  I like the hibiscus milk tea, but adding vanilla makes it feel a little bit too creamy (even though there's no addition of cream in the tea). Also, the strawberry BOBA was not satisfactory. The skin of the BOBA is quite thick so after it burst in the mouth you still have to chew the skin. And chewing the skin is like chewing on eggshell membrane or something like that. The strawberry flavor was also too strong, and it leaks easily to the drink. If you don't finish the drink fast, you'll end up drinking strawberry hibiscus milk tea instead of drinking hibiscus milk tea with strawberry-flavored BOBA.

If I come back to McDonald's in Germany, I think I will order the hibiscus tea again. This time, without any pearls. And no french fries either. I might want to try the wan tan although I am sure I will be dissatisfied with it because I know what authentic wan tan should taste like and I know how to make them. I have a tendency of getting unsatisfied when I bought something that I can prepare on my own and mine actually tastes better (or equally delicious, at least).

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The Netherlands - McDonalds menu that you can find only in this country

Last month in this post I told you that I didn't see anything different in McDonalds in the Netherlands. I'm sorry, I lied. There is actually something called McKroket. If you understand Indonesian, yes, kroket in the Netherlands refers to the same food in Indonesia. The only difference is the way kroket is eaten: in Indonesia, kroket is a snack that is eaten as it is, and in the Netherlands, you normally eat kroket smashed on a bread, and then topped with mustard sauce.

The packaging was rather fancy, emphasizing the fact that it is only available in the Netherlands. I am not a frequent McDonald customer so I'm not sure how they normally package a burger, but I find the packaging rather fancy.

I am not too familiar with eating kroket with bread or bun, but it was pretty good. There's beef in the kroket but you can't really feel the texture, and I wonder how much ground beef was used in the kroket. I like it, but I don't love it. I'm confident I can eat this thing again, but I will neither look for it nor crave for it.

McKroket has been there since 1999, so the package says.

Another menu that is limited only for the Netherlands branches is McMood, which is below:

My friend ordered it. I didn't have the chance to take a photo of the box but it was less interesting than the McKroket's. I still don't understand why they call it McMood. I suppose it improves your mood because it's tasty, but in simple words, it's a beef burger with a sunny side up egg with tomato slices and lettuce, and probably some sort of sauce that is close to a mayonnaise, one of the ultimate sauce in the Netherlands.

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The Netherlands - McDonald's

When I travel to another country, the last thing I want to eat is anything from McDonald's. Why? Because the menu is pretty much standardized around the country. Sometimes you will see unique menus that are only available in certain countries, for example Shaka Shaka (mini doughnut balls) in Japan and yam pie (instead of apple pie) in China.

I wasn't able to find McD in Wageningen (where my current campus is). I thought there would be one because Wageningen is a student city and fast food is most of the time a student's best friend during busy times. And then one day I went strolling at the Centrum (the center part of a town, kind of like a CBD but much, much smaller version of it) in Ede. I found it!

One fine Saturday I was with my friend studying food physics in McD because there is no Starbucks or Starbucks equivalent where you can sit down and spend hours drinking only one cup of coffee around. I took this opportunity to have a little investigation on McD in the Netherlands.

There was nothing too special on the menu (I was hoping to see something with Gouda cheese, but there isn't), so I ordered small fries. 

The size is just perfect, not too big and not too small for small size fries. I think the biggest small-size fries can be found in the US: it's about 1.5 times bigger than the one in the Netherlands, and about 2 times bigger than the one in Japan.

There is nothing different with the fries, but there is something different with the sauce. When you order fries from McD they'll ask you what kind of sauce you want, and I was only given a choice between mayonnaise and ketchup. So I said "mayonnaise".

Mayonnaise, in the Netherlands, is called fritessaus, which I believe means "fries sauce". 

 What surprises me more is that the mayonnaise is mixed with mustard!

The sauce actually tasted pretty good. I love the slight tang and spiciness from the mustard, accompanied with the creaminess from the oils in mayonnaise. The mayonnaise in the Netherlands is closer to Japanese mayonnaise (Kewpie): more savory than sweet. I dislike the mayonnaise in the US because it's too sweet for me and there is no or almost no savory component to it.

I have to come back to McD again and see if they have any other unique sauces. Normally they'd have BBQ sauce, cocktail, Cajun or some kind of special sauces if you ask them for those. Maybe they have Hollandaise sauce as a dipping? LOL

I'm lovin' it.

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