McD's- A contrarian view
 

I just got back from my umteenth trip to Ireland (I do business there). One night the conversation turned to restaurants, and my colleagues (who have been to the U.S. many times) all agreed that for the most part they prefer McD's over the generally mediocre eateries in Ireland! The bottom line is this- don't feel like you're some kind of rookie just because you're eating at McDonald's in a foreign country- YOU may well be the one eating with the locals while the tourists are eating at a local restaurant!

I would prefer McD over a mediocre eatery anywhere.

I try to avoid mediocre.

((I))

Well, there is a contrarian contrarian viewpoint.

Irish food isn't generally mediocre these days. In fact, however monotonous its pub food can get after a while, their stews and pies knock McD into the back end of yesterday.

What the Irish are seriously crap at is crap food. Those Abrakebabra places or are all a subtle plot by "Dr" Ian Paisley to poison any of the Republic's population who miraculously survive what passes for food at Supermac.

Just like at the UK's Wimpy Bars, there's no debate: McD do crap food better than their foreign imitators. And there are still too many times and places in Ireland (North and South) where crap's the only thing on offer.

The trick, of course is to plan so as to avoid it: the real thing or the imitation.

"I try to avoid mediocre."

As do I- but as you well know there is no reliable way to know if a place is good or not until it's too late, and your odds of happening upon a good restaurant (in Ireland anyways) are rather slim.

What, no Zagats for Ireland..?

Kirbyks,

Thanks very much for this post; I tend to agree with it.

Some of the responses thus far make me happy that I am not hung up on food and that it has never become the focus of my travels.

Of course, there are many here who feel eating is a major, if not THE, highlight of any trip, and I understand that.

As to the "quality of crap" well, I cannot imagine wasting much time on that concept.

But what can you do when the stuff tastes so repulsive. Lots of fat, chopped into small pieces, mixed with some meat particles from at least a thousand dead pigs. In some countries it's your best option.

A post from xyz123 some while got me hooked on Subways sandwiches, which are so much better than MCD.

Micky D has some good for the price salads if you eschew meat

and for flanner to be calling McD yukkie food whereas it is healthier by far than the usual fish and chip shop serves up

as usual these criteria he presents mainly apply to the upper crust who can afford the absurdly high prices for a 'proper' restaurant

thank God for McDonalds and i for one patronize them a lot in Europe - mainly for coffee, ice cream sundaes and salads and clean WCs without the usual hassle.

And yes 99% of folks at the gazillions mobbing the Mac Donalds in UK are in fact British - again more ordinary blokes and families.

kirbyks - I am shocked to hear about the food in Irish eateries being ' just not worth it'!
We are planning a trip to Ireland next year and have been warned it's hellish expensive but I have no intentions of parting with my meagre South African rands for a putrid meal!
What about fresh ingredients to do our own catering - are they below par as well? I'm dying to try an Irish potatoe and see if the match up to the fabulous ones we had in Guernsey!
As for McD's........has only been around in our part of the world for about 10 years! Very basic fare. Nothing as choice orientated as USA or Europe. If I have to eat McD's I like the 'Fish-O-Fillet'.

Haven't been to McD's since my son outgrew them at age 10.

Given the choice between McD's -- or any chain for that matter -- and a greasy spoon diner, or pizza parlor, or a hot dog stand or barbecue pit, I'll pass on McD's every time.

In Europe there's always a pub or cafe or something. No need to patronize an establishment I avoid at home.

We travel with three kids, so it seems like at least once on each trip, we'll find ourselves at McDonalds (except in Barcelona where we managed to avoid McDs until we had a layover at O'Hare on the way home). It's certainly not my favorite food, but sometimes you find yourselves with hungry kids at an odd time. For example, when we took a day trip from Florence to Pisa, we got back to Florence (hungry) at about 3 pm and we wanted to go to one more church before it closed. Being able to zip in to McDonalds and be finished eating in about 20 minutes allowed us to see some things we couldn't have seen had we settled in for a 90 minute meal (IF we had found on open "Italian" place.) We don't always have as much time as we'd like in each destination and some times we need to just grab a quick bite.

It's funny the way it works...I am a very picky eater and with the exception of Paris for some reason, the one thing you can count on at McDonald's is exactly what you would expect from a McDonald's in Chicago or Los Angeles (not in New York BTW where local McDonald's have had to get special permission to put only ketchup on burgers and not ketchup and mustard!)...they are reliable and you can pretty much count on clean restrooms (as a matter of fact, when nature calls, I have no problems whatsoever ducking into a McDonald's to use the facilities although I must admit there are places where they put locks on the restrooms to discourage rift raft or in other words freeloaders like me...Paris is another story!)

Several years ago, I was doing a city tour with a local guide in Krakow in Poland and at the end of the tour, she was pointint out places to eat there in the main square...frankly I wasn't impressed and uttered under my breath "but where's Mcdonald's?" She said why would you want to eat there; I said at least there I know what I'm getting...she told me around the corner...went in there and lo and behold it was jammed with locals not visiting Yanks. Same thing was true in Prague....the local guide told me that everybody says such terrible things about McDonald's but they are always jammed with locals. And in London, I defy you to go to a MickeyD and not find plenty of locals there not wanting to wait 15 to 20 minutes for a mediocre meal.

But having said that, as logos pointed out, I am most partial to Subway which has made a great push in Germany and Austria recently and I find a 6 in cheese steak with southwest sauce (15 cm. in Europe) and onions and tomatoes and black olives (no lettuce) to be yummy...have had it several times during visits to such places as Frankfurt just off the main square, Heidelberg, Berlin in the Postdammer Platz U and S Bahn station, Hamburg at the railway station, Vienna and a great great lunch sure more edible, at least to me, than wurst (although I must admit I've developed a taste for white sausage at various stands in Munich! gobbled down with a liter and a pretzel)....

Everybody loves to complain about how terrible this American innovation is but the funny thing is none of them are every empty and as I said, at least I know what I'm eating!

I suppose if you're comparing to a cheap mediocre local restaurant then you might have a point, but I try to find something unique and good and usually have no problem doing so.

But you do bring up one valid point. Even in places like Paris, I think you'd be rubbing elbows with more locals at McD's than you would if you went to many of the nice restaurants often recommended here and elsewhere, which generally tend to be at least half tourists. Nevertheless, I'd prefer to eat with other tourists at a nice place, than with a bunch of locals at McD's.

I avoid McDonalds in the US even though I do eat fast food. In Italy I ate a "meal" there only once, when I was starving and about to return from Pisa to Florence by train. So I grabbed a McDonalds take-out burger meal at the train station. It was pretty average. I did visit McDonalds a few other times to snack after I got tired of paying 2 Euros for tiny gelato cones.

I ate a KFC in Prague a few years ago and believe it or not, it was (by fast food standards) really good. KFC in London by contrast was awful, almost inedible. Their standards obviously vary by country.

I am always amused by the travellers with the sophisticated palates who would never eat at a McDonald's. I have a lot of European friends who enjoy the occasional sneer at the expense of poor MickeyD. However, I have ben in McD's in Paris, London, Rome, Florence, Malaga, Torremolinos etc... and they are usually filled with natives. With the precipitous dollar decline we expect to be patronizing dear Mickey even more on our annual winter trip to Spain. We enjoy the salads, sundaes, etc...
What can I say?? We're peasants.

Re: McDs filled with locals outside the US.

1. It is exotic.

2. What's the population of these cities? How many McDs are there in each city?

So, on any given day several hundred people, out of a population of millions, decide to have something different and go to McDs.

This means nothing.

((I))

Like Fra, I avoid McDonalds at home - absolutley hate it. But then I generally am not a fast food person. There is NO WAY I would eat at a McD's anywhere else, either. Never have liked it and cannot see myself liking it in the future. Very doubtful. And I have tried again fairly recently to give it another chance. Nope.

While in different countries I want to try different foods. Therefore McDonalds would be a waste of time for me. It's not because I'm a chef - it's just that I don't like the "food" or plastic-y environment or the sameness.

Ira

<So, on any given day several hundred people, out of a population of millions, decide to have something different and go to McDs>


there are many many MacDonalds now alal over Europe - in no way is it exotic

McDonalds are in outlying areas and McDrives all over - they are all packed with locals because no tourists are in these areas

<it means nothing> well it does McDonalds and Burger Kings and Quick, etc are extremely popular day in and day out in just about every European sizeable town except the "Slow Food" towns in Italy it seems where local officials scheme to keep them out.

McDonalds for the masses yes not for something that ceased to be exotic say 30 years ago or so

I like MacDo's (I learnt in France to pronounce like this).
Usually I attend MacDo's once each 2 weeks when I'm in home country and once each 2 days while abroad.

>in no way is it exotic
It was in Summer 1966, when the first MCD opened in Munich (Sendling afaik)

In the US i occasionally eat a grilled chicken snack wrap or once every 3 months of so a fattening biscuit sandwich. The coffee is pretty good. In Europe I visited mc D's when I wanted a large cup of coffee to have with a pastry I'd picked up at a bakery (yes I love Cafe Creme but at $5 a small cup well can't have too many of those a day). In Avignon they had "Le Petit Moutard" - a burger on a small square roll with some kind of sauce and it was very good as well as very cheap! They also had potato wedges with ranch sauce that I liked. I'm not a foodie so did not want to spend alot on meals every day.

kirbyks wrote: "your odds of happening upon a good restaurant (in Ireland anyways) are rather slim."

That's wildly inaccurate.

Perhaps this thread was in response to a recent article on Msn.com (http://travel.msn.com/Guides/article...umentid=428393), but the topic is timely.

My spouse and I have been to Europe seven times since 1975. In that span, we've eaten at an American fast food place three times:

--1975 at a McD in Amsterdam after 5 weeks of bumming across Europe as we were heading to the airport for the return trip home

--in 2000 at a Burger King t 11pm in the Oslo train station when no other restaurant was open

--Last month when starved and lost on German backroads in mid-afternoon and coming upon a McD at the entrance to an Autobahn.

Typically, unless faced with no other options (2 & 3 above) or falling prey to human weakness (#1 above), I try to not go to an American chain place when traveling to Europe.

For me, it's not even the food. It's more the dismay of the Americanization of places that at one time were so different from what you found in the US. I don't think there should be a McD, Subway, Pizza Hut or Starbucks on every corner; my eating at those places only makes us one step closer to that happening. (I will use their restrooms though, figuring one more added cost in the absence of revenue will contribute to a decision to close their shutters -- right)

Also, I find it sad that, for fear of the possibility of a bad meal, we as a culture have gotten to the point where we feel compeled to stick with uniformity rather than the opportunity for something usual and really memorable.

Whether locals or tourists patronize McDs and the like is irrelevant to me. That any of us do in such culturally/culinarily rich places as Europe is both amazing and unfortunate.

"That's wildly inaccurate"

Really? I must just be one unlucky guy to keep picking the bad ones.

Italy was saturated with McDonalds - they were almost everywhere, even two in Venice. None in the Cinque Terre though - yet! Hope it stays that way.

Oddly I saw almost no other American fast food chains in Italy. I saw a sign for a Burger King in Rome but never actually saw one. In the Czech Republic KFCs are everywhere. It's funny how the different fast food companies have gotten into some countries but not others.

<Whether locals or tourists patronize McDs and the like is irrelevant to me. That any of us do in such culturally/culinarily rich places as Europe is both amazing and unfortunate>

amazing that some of us can not afford to eat in culturally/culinarily rich places that you do

and your attitude of using the facilities to help McDs go out of business, depriving locals of what they want, is simply disgusting.

Get off your high horse and don't castigate folks who do go to McDonalds because of economic reasons or they simply like it, like locals do.

Gee, Pal. Got a crud crosswise today???

How do you know what my budget and palate are like? Lots of assumptions on your part, buddy boy.

Locals can do what they want--I have no problem with that. That shouldn't compel me to patronize the place, though, should it. Not wanting to do so hardly seems to be "High Horse". By the unnecessarily ill-tempered, misplaced anger of your responses, me thinketh that it is you that needs to park the steed.

but the French have their own version of mcdonalds, called Quick.it is more or less a carbon copy so must be sucessful

I wrote: "That's wildly inaccurate"

and kirbyks responded: "Really? I must just be one unlucky guy to keep picking the bad ones."

I would also consider the possibility that you like taking cheap shots. I live in Ireland; I like good food; I can find it most times I eat out.

You can find poor meals anywhere, but if you do so consistently then I think your strategy for picking restaurants is poor.

(I will use their restrooms though, figuring one more added cost in the absence of revenue will contribute to a decision to close their shutters -- right

This to me is totally repulsive

<That any of us do in such culturally/culinarily rich places as Europe is both amazing and unfortunate>

not amazing to me - the prices for coffee for instance - a place to rest and write postcards - we all can't afford the $6-7 cup of coffee at a European cafe

i just find your attitude dismaying and your own words say it all

please don't bring the vehemence of the Lounge over here

i wrote in another post, the best cheeseburger ive ever had was in belfast.
stupid that you generalise a couple of colleagues (who were probably winding you up about "lovin it") as to the whole of ireland's dislike of its other eateries.
not so, you should try centra sandwiches, quite well known as a mediochre eatery, or clements or any romas I, II or III in dublin city centre.
Nobody should eat in macdonalds out of principle.

Another factor is that McDonalds' tend to be pretty large and have lots of seating, whereas local places may be a lot smaller. We were touring Rome on an unexpectedly cold, wet June day (it hailed on us!). By the time we got to the Spanish Steps, we were chilled to the bone. We needed to go inside somewhere, but all the little local places were packed. But there was plenty of room in the two-level McDonalds nearby. It served its purpose of letting us have a snack in a dry place.

Pal,
If the vehemence of the lounge is being brought here, look at yourself first, Pally-boy. You, not I, managed to toss in vehement terms like "disgusting" and "repulsive". What's your problem?

You know, I had thought of putting one of those smiley faces after that comment about the restrooms, but figured it would be obvious that I was making an overexaggeration/attempt at humor. I guess it wasn't and that I should have.

who pays $6 or $7 dollars for a cup of coffee in Europe?

sorry to have taken you meaning wrong but if you had written what you wrote then my reaction was well justified. Sorry. the smily would have changed the context.

The only time I ever eat in McDonalds at home is when I'm on a roadtrip and those kind of restaurants are the quickest and easiest thing along the highways. I have been to them in Europe, but usually just for coffee or a drink or a dessert, perhaps, never a sandwich.

Their coffee, ice cream sundaes, etc., are fine. I do think they are exotic in some places where they have just opened, I remember hearing about them (maybe China, some places like that). But they are not exotic in Europe, they've been around for years. They are better than Quicks, in my opinion, which is awful.

So, I don't like fast food, overly processed food, etc much anyway, but I've had certain McDonalds food that was superior to some of the execrable stuff served in British pubs, which I literally almost gagged on. I couldn't eat more than one bite, it was awful. I did have a lot of bad to mediocre food in Ireland, but it was a long time ago, so won't comment on current offerings. I don't think it's useful to say how well you can eat there if it just means you can go to expensive, nice restaurants, for a good meal. People shouldn't have to do that.

It is really mistaken to think only a few hundred locals go to a McDonalds in major European cities. There are many around Paris, for example, and I've been in lots in the outer arrondisements that are nothing but locals, and lots of them, and they may have 50 people in them just at one point in time (or maybe more). They eat there the same reason they are popular in the US -- believe it or not, everybody isn't rich, a "foodie" hanging around St Germain, wants every meal to be a cosmic experience, etc. The one at Place d'Italie is rather large, for example, and I've been in there when it was very busy, and there were not a lot of tourists in there.

I would like to disagree with the idea that restaurants in Ireland are mediocre at best. I am not particularly a foodie, but I have had some wonderful meals in Ireland--made with fresh local produce, meat, etc. The food has been presented an enticing way as well as being delicious. Further, as woman travelling solo, I have never been placed at an undesirable table or treated as a second class citizen while on my own. In fact, I have had more memorable meals in Ireland than in any other country in which I have travelled.

Secondly I must admit to more than a few MacD meals. As others have said, it was a quick choice when I wanted to squeeze in another sight or two or have time to just wander. Restrooms are dependable.
When hot and tired in summer travel,
MacD's always has iced drinks. Thanks to retirement, I no longer have to travel in summer, so iced drinks are rarely needed. And, last of all, heresy of heresies, I do like their food, albeit in limited quantities.

Just my two cents' worth.

I've told this story before. I never eat at McD's at home, but a few years ago after a couple weeks in France and having lots of great pommes frites, we got stuck for a couple hours with a delayed train in the Florence train station, transferring to Bologna. I finally went over to the McD's in the station and got myself some fries, and my partner a milk shake. He raved about the milk shake -- well, where else in Europe do you get them like that? And in all honesty, if those fries had been on my plate in any of the really good Paris places I had eaten in the previous weeks I would have been perfectly satisfied. They were as good as any frites in France in my humble opinion. I suspect that most of those who will now groan about my total lack of sophistication have never had fries in a McD's in Europe, so their groans will be in ignorance.

McDonalds, perhaps under the spector of Bove-esque type attacks, has taken great pains to perfect the taste of its French frites

it has taters especially grown, all on French farms and aims to cook them to the French taste as much as possible

and probably in fats healthier than even in fanciey restaurants

I would have been hard pressed to find any food in Ireland worse than McDonald's. Even their Supermac chain has better food. Seriously, McDonald's food is so bad even my four and six year old kids won't eat it. I don't know how they remain so popular with such bad food. Burger King (also in Ireland) and Carl's Jr. are so much better.