Joke probably worked better 10 years ago when McDonald’s wasn’t priced like gourmet dining.
That’s what I was thinking reading this
If you go to a foreign country and think every local restaurant is overpriced then the problem may actually be you.
One of the best parts of living in the SF bay area is literally anywhere you go isn’t particularly expensive per what you are used to. My wife and I went out to a particularly fancy restaurant on Santorini and the bill was less than we’ve often paid in Berkeley.
I’m in SF right now recovering from medical stuff. Food prices here shocked me how relatively cheap it is compared to where I live in Seattle. Had Yamo the other day, best fried rice I’ve had since visiting Taiwan, only $30 to feed three people. That meal would have been like $60-80 in Seattle
Must’ve forgotten to add the Healthy Santorini surcharge
That entirely depends on where you live and where you go.
“Wanting affordable meals? How dare I!”
Wanting affordable meals
- At the waitstaffs’ expense
That’s why you think other countries are overpriced, they’re paying their staff
A decent wage, what a concept! Ring ring USA ($7.25 an hour, I ask you…).
Would be interesting to see grocery store/wholesale pricing too as that should be a factor too.
Would you believe groceries are hugely more expensive in the US?
Do you tip the self service checkouts or something? 😂
Make your own food then
Well, here where I live, McDonalds IS the weird overpriced restaurant.
Judging by your instance that’s wishful thinking… Not saying maccas isnt garbage but it certainly isnt exotic or unusual here in Germany. I give you the overpriced part though, they went right along with the covid greed pricing.
I didn’t mean weird in sense of exotic, more weird as in the atmosphere in there is kinda weird. To be fair, Burger King has a kind of similar weird atmosphere.
But yeah, it is expensive af. It was even before Covid.
McDoof!
I knew they call McDonald’s “Maccas” in Australia, but I didn’t know they did so in Germany too.
Actually we call it Mecces, Mäckie or McDoof (like McDumb).
Yeah i translated it for the monolingually handicapped (see the other commenter)
I’d go to the local places and mcdonalds. I want to know what they taste like in a country with actual food standards.
Survey says: the same.
McDonalds tastes the same everywhere. Which is why it’s the go to home food for people who travel.
Just like Panda Garden is for Asian people at airports lol. It’s American food that’s close enough to what they’d actually prefer.
Yes McDonald’s tastes the same but the menu can change wildly, with a definite sway towards local tastes for menu item variations.
Oh absolutely. McDonalds and most other conventional American fast food joints can have crazy menus in some countries.
Japanese KFC and McDonalds look particularly fun.
My day is ruined.
McDonald’s seemed way different to me while I was in England. The burger’s actually seemed to have seasoning on them (despite being in England), they had rotating ‘Taste’s of America’ (called something like that) menus that featured interesting variants that I never saw over here. I think there was a really good one with a sour dough bun.
McDonald’s here is charging the price of a local gourmet hamburguer for their trash, it’s insane.
Maybe anon is from a country with a shitty currency and the only affordable food he found is McDonald’s garbage.
Or maybe anon is not used to fine dining at 3* Michelin restaurants.
Right because local restaurants are all fine dining
Why would you eat anything else on your holidays? You can eat comfy food at home all year long in your local restaurants.
Because comfy, everyday food is different from one country to another?
Totally agree in some way, I also try to eat the best food I can when I’m visiting a place, but price is definitely a factor here. You can find fucking amazing food in many places for very cheap.
We must travel differently and with a different sort of budget
Agreed. I travel to see things and experience life in another area. I want to go where a local would go after a long day at work or when a college student is homesick for home cooking, not where a local would go to propose marriage.
If I want super fancy food, I have options near home. I want “authentic” food to truly experience the culture.
I’ve done this. When traveling for a 3 week study abroad in college I got tired of the local food eventually and got burger king one night, dominos pizza another night. Some of my peers got American food every night though, I held out as long as I could
Local foods are part of the trip if you ask me.
Go to a grocery store. There’s more interesting and authentic stuff there anyway. And you’re guaranteed not to pay a tourist tax.
I often get restaurant fatigue when on holiday.
It’s not the food or the price, it’s just that I don’t want to waste my holiday in these hour long waiting rituals that a typical restaurant experience is.
Restaurant fatigue is a thing for sure. I think most people who are experienced travellers know this. That’s where grocery stores and supermarkets help but also global fast food chains. You know what you’re going to get and you’ll get it fast.
I don’t know about McDonald’s abroad, as I’ve never had it out of country, but here state side McDonald’s isn’t even fast anymore. It used to be fast, cheap, and acceptable, but they’ve given up fast and cheap and it’s really only acceptable now.
Still faster than most sit down restaurants, but nowhere near what it was in terms of speed ten years ago.
One argument I read about eating popular fastfood when traveling is that for people who might not have iron stomachs to eat unfamiliar food in foreign places, getting fastfood at mcdonalds for example allows a reasonable expectation of standard food quality and hygiene. That and since it’s familiar food, the risk of getting an upset stomach is lower.
Hygiene? At McDonald’s?
At a global chain, you can expect some sort of standard protocols that they try to at least be consistent with wherever you go. Not saying they are the cleanest, just that you can expect the same or at least similar quality wherever in the world you eat.
aah going to a conference in Switzerland as a PhD student, wish I could afford a McDonalds. It was mostly migros bread, cheese and pasta
When I was visiting Scotland one of the first things I did was go to McDonald’s, and I gotta say, it’s orders of magnitudes better than in the US
What was better about it?
They replaced the Coca-cola with Guinness
It was amazing, every soda was Guinness!
Edit: except Irn-Bru, that was still a soda
Just the quality in general, the food tasted good, the buns weren’t flat and deflated. My only problem was that they used light mayo, so it was a little off tasting. I got over that pretty fast though
I did extensive traveling in 2018. I would be in a different country for a week or 2 at a time.
I would check out McDonald’s once per country just to see or try unique things on their menu.
There are so many meals to eat each day, so a single McDonald’s meal is no big deal.
I don’t know the movie, but it depends on the country. I mean I wouldn’t eat British “cuisine” if I could help it.
Through the wonder of colonialism the British do have good food. Just not their own.
All those countries they wrecked to get spices, yet they eat beans on toast.
Idk, I genuinely like british food:
- fish n chips
- yorkshire pudding and toast
- shepherds pie
- meat pies
- trifle
I honestly like it way better than well-regarded food cultures like Italian and French food. I also really like German food, which has a lot of similarities.
My favorite food culture is probably Indian, but british is pretty high on my list as far as european food goes.
