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The Horrors Of McDonald's - A $27 Billion Dollar Franchise, Ending Humanity, One Sandwich at a Time


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I recall McD's offering a crabcake sandwich here in the DC area a few summers back.

I think they still might be doing it. I recall a billboard from last year on the way to the DE shore advertising the McD crabcake. But then again it could have been 2-3 years ago. Those drives tend to blend together.

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The McDonalds in Mystic, CT has had the lobster roll for as far back as I can remember. Furthermore, I have been a little sketched out about it as far back as I can remember. We tended to stop there on family trips to the aquarium and seaport. Somebody must be buying them, though.

Edited by shogun
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Is no one else appalled by the Fruit & Walnut salad at McDonald's?

I think they should maintain their killer image and stop with these salads.

Who wants rancid berries and lettuce leaves when they're looking for a happy meal?

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Is no one else appalled by the Fruit & Walnut salad at McDonald's?

I think they should maintain their killer image and stop with these salads.

Who wants rancid berries and lettuce leaves when they're looking for a happy meal?

I know what you're sayin' BUT I was hungry in the midst of a looong road trip recently. Stopped at one of those convenience store/gas station places that had a few "food" options inside, one of which was a McDonald's. I couldn't quite bring myself to go for the fruit and walnut salad--I really hate apples that aren't crisp--so I decided on a "parfait." Yogurt, strawberries, blueberries and some pathetic "granola" to sprinkle on top. At that moment, I felt truly grateful to all those fat fucks who've sued McDonald's. That's the only reason I was able to find something to eat that wouldn't give me a tummy ache and get back on the road. Tort reform, who needs it?
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Lobster Rolls at McD's?!  Blech! 

Another favorite McD invention that should have stayed in the test kitchen - the McRib.  I've never heard of an animal with a boneless rib cage!

Mmmmm..Krusty's Rib-which anyone?

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I remember being on my honeymoon in Alaska in 1993, and seeing "Halibut McNuggets" on the menu at McDonald's.

And they have the McOz in Australia, which, best as I can tell, is a quarter pounder with a slice of pickled beet on top.

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The McDonalds in Mystic, CT has had the lobster roll for as far back as I can remember.  Furthermore, I have been a little sketched out about it as far back as I can remember.  We tended to stop there on family trips to the aquarium and seaport.  Somebody must be buying them, though.

It's probably the same damn pile of lobster-roll they had the last time you were there.

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Rocks is probably going to kick me off the board for this post......

Out of sheer desperation and hunger Friday morning (and the need for grease to absorb the beer I had consumed the night before) I had my first McGriddle.

Cheese, bacon and egg sandwiched between two pancakes, McD style. It's a brilliant combination. Everything a hangover needs, grease to absorb the alcohol, sweet to satisfy one half of the tongue, pork and salt to please the other. Conveniently but together in sandwich form so you can consume discretely during another boring conference lecture. If any other breakfast joint in the city had it on their menu the line would be a mile long.

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Once upon a time (forty years ago! Ouch!!) McDonald's had legitimately good food: hamburgers (fresh hamburger), french fries (fresh potatos sliced in house and cooked in 70% animal fat with the skin on) and real milk shakes made with frozen custard, milk and syrup. That was the complete menu and the slogan was "Forty five cents for a three course meal...at McDonald's." In 1967 the french fries were replaced with frozen and McDonald's had a lengthy marketing campaign to try to convince people that their new FROZEN potatoes were better.

They weren't.

Today, there is literally one place on the face of the earth that still has McDonald's original french fries, Dick's in Spokane, Washington. This is not to be confused with the Seattle Dick's which is a different owner. But in the late '50's the owner of Spokane Dick's (today) tried to buy a McD franchise and was turned down by Ray Kroc. Not to be outdone he travelled to So Cal and worked in a McD for a month or so and then returned to Spokane to open "Panda's," a McDonald's clone. Somewhere over the years he changed the name to "Dick's" and today, according to USA Today this is the second highest grossing fast food restaurant in the U. S. (behind the Varsity in Atlanta and ahead of Spartanburg's Beacon).

The french fries at Dick's/McDonald's/Panda's are unbelievable! They actually are superior to the original Thresher's on the boardwalk in Atlantic City!

There was a very real reason that McDonald's grew to the size that it has. That reason can be tasted in Spokane, Washington at Dick's Drive In. The 1990's era McDonald's down the street does a literal small fraction of the business serving food that McDonald's in the '50's and '60's would have been embarassed to serve.

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If any other breakfast joint in the city had it on their menu the line would be a mile long.

If everybody in the city who ate at McDonald's every morning had to go to one location I bet the line would be more than a mile long. And every once in a while I'd be in it.

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Egg McMuffins. I always ask for no cheese so that they have to make one fresh. English muffin, fried egg, canadian bacon. Simple, I can eat it while driving, and every now and again they forget to hard cook the egg and it's a little runny.

The one thing I avoid at all cost if McDonalds coffee. One must have some standards.

Edited by Heather
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I start most business trips with a sausage biscuit at the National Airport location. Usually with a nice greasy hashbrown. Yum.

Question: why won't McDonald's serve breakfast a little later on weekends? 10:30 comes awfully early after a night out.

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Once upon a time (forty years ago! Ouch!!) McDonald's had legitimately good food:  hamburgers (fresh hamburger), french fries (fresh potatos sliced in house and cooked in 70% animal fat with the skin on)

Until my apartment fire a few years ago, I actually had one of the old McD's tater slicers...thing worked better than anything else I've ever tried for reducing veggies to 1/4 inch square sticks.

Rob

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Until my apartment fire a few years ago, I actually had one of the old McD's tater slicers...thing worked better than anything else I've ever tried for reducing veggies to 1/4 inch square sticks.

Rob

McDonald's has a "museum" in their Downey, CA store (original structure from the early'50's) that has numerous photographs and equipment from that era. Included in this are the detailed instructions for making french fries the way they were made back then. I am surprised that no one else has done this. Those were great french fries. I also remember in the '60's that the McDonald's on University Blvd. (near Ledo's) would liteally have lines that started at the windows where you placed your order and stretched all the way to the far side of the golden arches. This was about 50 or 60 people in each of two lines.

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Several years ago, the Mickey D's I drove by in Minnesota and South Dakota were running a regional promotion where they served grilled Johnsonville brats.

My father and I ordered a couple each; they were served up with toasted buns, soft-cooked onions and mustard. We agreed the only thing missing from that meal were a couple of 16-oz. McPilsners.

Craig

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Several years ago, the Mickey D's I drove by in Minnesota and South Dakota were running a regional promotion where they served grilled Johnsonville brats.

My father and I ordered a couple each; they were served up with toasted buns, soft-cooked onions and mustard.  We agreed the only thing missing from that meal were a couple of 16-oz. McPilsners.

Craig

summertime on the way to Rehoboth the McDonalds just before the Bay Bridge would often be running crab cakes, I did not eat them, the whole idea makes me want to induldge in arsonistic fantasies....

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McDonald's has "local" food in many of its restaurants such as lobster rolls in New Hampshire and Maine, crab cakes on Maryland's Eastern shore, even pizza used to show up in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts. Overseas, the menus can be very different with ketchup mandating an upcharge, a kind of tartar sauce offered with them in Belgium and part of France and Germany. Even a totally different kind of french fries that here would be similar to the cottage potatoes served at Chick Fil-A. Germany had a grilled chicken sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes, thinly sliced raw onion and a garlicky low calorie mayonnaise that was delicious and less than 500 calories. I virtually lived on these for lunch on a number of trips last year and the year before. This year they disappeared!

It is embarassing to note how much I miss them-but I do.

I should also mention the fear that I have unintentionally inspired in McDonald's counter clerks in Italy and elsewhere when they, not speaking English, realize that an American is trying to order a "quarter pounder with cheese, french fries and a diet coke." Most speak some English but occasionally, especially in Italy, I've found terror in the eyes of the person on the other side of the counter. WHAT is a "quarter pounder?" "Extra pickles?" WHAT are pickles? I've learned that "McRoyal" is pronounced the same regardless of the country it is in and to live with one "pickle" on any hamburger that I might get. And, yes, "Coke Light" is sweeter than Diet Coke and "catsup" tastes the same when it is made in the Netherlands as it does when it's made in Pittsburgh and spelled with a "K." I must admit that it SEEMS to taste better when I am not charged for it, though.

And for those who laugh at me for eating at McDonald's overseas, well, I can just imagine how well an In 'n Out Burger would do in Heidelberg! Or on the Champs d'Alysee! Or even in Reston....

The history of McDonald's....in German! http://www.mcdonalds.de/html/index_frame.h..._uns/start.html

Edited by Joe H
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Last time I was at Mcdonalds (very long time ago), after paying my bill , I asked if I can get a ` free smile`. (This was the time before their current vision `everyone`s lovin it`. They used to say `smiles are free` ) The girl behind the counter looked at me like Im a maniac. She said `what do you mean ? .

This wasnt the only reason I stopped eating Mcdonalds.

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I start most business trips with a sausage biscuit at the National Airport location. Usually with a nice greasy hashbrown. Yum.

Question: why won't McDonald's serve breakfast a little later on weekends? 10:30 comes awfully early after a night out.

McD's to consider all-day breakfast

Looks like you may get your wish. The only thing I'll eat at McDonald's is their breakfast, or possibly the chicken selects (at least they vaguely looks chickenish as opposed to the nuggets) but a big bucket of grease is rarely what I want to start the day with (unless it's to sop up the alcohol the day after a long night). But now lunch and dinner are seperate stories.

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Meahgan, must you always be the spoil-sport? :) Everyone has eaten McDonalds at least once. It's all over Europe. It's just logical they want to get into China. I mean, a billion plus people market, how can you ignore that? My favorite line from Fast Food Nationwas the fact that the meat from perhaps 1,000 cows was in your one burger. Now that's crazy.

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My favorite part of the article is how operating in the developing world allows you to write sexy, edgy, out-there ads that would have NEVER EVER run in the neutered U.S. sissy-TV environment.

Reminds me of home and early ads of fax machines. On billboards. All over the city. Yes, it played on exactly what it sounds like they should have.

Anyone who wants our ad of condoms that ran in Kenya, PM me.

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I get to LA for work twice a year, most years. Each time, I strive to get to In & Out, but each time, I have been stymied in my efforts. "This time," I thought, "I will not be denied. If all else fails, I'll find one en route to San Diego from LA!" Surely along that stretch between Huntington Beach and La Jolla, I'd find an outlet, right?

Around San Juan Capistrano, I found myself famished and frustrated. I had missed an In & Out or two, not realizing that they were near the exit...but just beyond and thus several u-turns away. Stopping in at a Starbucks near the Mission, I asked and got shrugs from the cashier. A barrista unhelpfully pointed north. I gave in and ate at McDonald's, the other options being Taco Bell, KFC and something equally noxious.

The fries were hot and salty. My quarter pounder with cheese arrived without pickles, as requested. But I drove off without my bottle of water. :blink:

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God I love it when people here fess up to stuff like this. It makes me feel so much less like a heathen.

I periodically have a McDonald's itch that I have to scratch. It's been a few months, but it's lurking. I attribute this to the fact that I worked at McDonald's in high school. Whatever addictive substance with which they infuse their food still resides in my muscle tissue in high concentrations.

P.S.: I had two frozen burritos for dinner last night. And they weren't any kind of friendly organic version branded with the possessive form of a woman's name.

P.P.S.: That felt good.

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I ate some McDonald's a couple weekends ago for the first time in maybe 5 years. The Days Inn by the Ohio State Fairgrounds shares a parking lot with a 24 hours MickeyD's. Catch was only the drive thru was open after midnight, hey we decided to try walking through the drive thru, nope we were told that was breaking McDonald's Laws. We eventaully flagged down a car of young lasses who appeared to be as equally inebriated as us and convinced them to buy us some food. 20 piece nugget at 1am when you are drunk mighty fine eating.

Best part was when I went back up to the drive thru window and demanded more sweet and sour dipping sauce from the manager. He gave it to me and I told him that he just broke his own fucking law. Drunk and harassing the overnight McDonald's manager...priceless.

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I, Al Dente, do solemnly swear, I will never eat at McDonalds again for the rest of my life.

Every day, on my walk from White Flint metro to my office and back, I take a shortcut behind McD's. The smell I pick up when walking by the ass-end of this establishment is enough to keep me away. I have visions of various evil acts committed behind those locked red doors. I wonder what gruesome sights there are in those dumpsters. I'm certain McD's is the primary cause of all the world's woes.

I'm begging you, don't take your children there. They'll only grow up to destroy Western Civilization.

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Meahgan, must you always be the spoil-sport? ;) Everyone has eaten McDonalds at least once. It's all over Europe. It's just logical they want to get into China. I mean, a billion plus people market, how can you ignore that? My favorite line from Fast Food Nationwas the fact that the meat from perhaps 1,000 cows was in your one burger. Now that's crazy.
Fast Food nation should be required viewing for all middle school students.
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Fast Food nation should be required viewing for all middle school students.

I had the craving for a chocolate milkshake from here a few weeks ago. That was a mistake. I felt like a sack of crap afterwards.

What's worse is that, when I was still in college and my friend who had graduated came into town, we would go out drinking and THEN end up at the 24 hour McDonald's on M St. and I'd get the milkshake at like 2 am....ugh.

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Not sure what possessed me to be one of the billions who will take advantage of the free "southern style" chicken sandwich giveaway today, but let me save the rest of you the time & trouble. Yes, you get free food, but it's not worth the calories. It's not atrocious, and the pickles are more plentiful than a Chick-fil-A Sandwich, but that's about it. The seasoning isn't there, the bun is pedestrian and like the nuggets, I'm not sure how many pieces of chicken were pieced together to make this cutlet. For my money, I'm sticking with the original chicken sandwich place - even if it means I can't have one on Sunday because it's the Lord's Day.

For those of you who don't trust one person's opinion who just took one for the team, stop by any of the quadrillion Micky D's today until 7 PM...all it will cost you is the price of a medium drink, gas money (I walked so there's something), and a ton of wasted calories.

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