Digital Nomads

I had truffle fries at McDonalds in Sweden and my life was changed

I always like to try to McFlurrys with this regional candy. But I notice a lot of places it’s just vanilla ice cream with a topping. They don’t mix it in the machine with the plastic spoon.

I never eat McDonalds in the US or anywhere while travelling but some reason whenever I’m waiting for a train, the train station McD’s is so appealing. It’s also fun to see the differences in the menus. I had McD’s at the Ljubljana train station, Zagreb train station, and some train station in Serbia somewhere I think.

But the second I leave the train station, getting McDonalds in Europe becomes entirely unpalatable again.

I went to McDonalds in Bali. They were advertising a beef rendang burger that had a pink bun so I figured I had to give it a try.

I live in France and they used to do special French burgers as a limited time thing - there was a raclette one with hash brown in it, loads of cheese and bits of bacon in the bun and a fondue one that had loads and loads of cheese.

My weirdest American fast food experience was at a McDonalds in Italy.

I had just arrived on the train, was exhausted, and ordered a burger. Then I saw the coffee bar. WOW. I ordered a cappuccino with my burger, and the worker looked at me funny, but went over to the non-staffed coffee bar and made one for me. It was amazing.

As I was eating and drinking my coffee, a woman from across the restaurant couldn't stop staring at me. She looked pissed. She finally made her way over to me, picked up my coffee, and set it farther away from my my meal. "COFFEE AFTER!" she said in a thick accent.

The woman was so bothered that I was drinking my coffee along with my meal and not after I had finished it that she nearly blew a fuse.

I was so stunned that I complied and saved the rest of it until after, I mean, I was new in Italy and wanted to make sure the police wouldn't arrest me for it or something. But all I could think of for the rest of my time there was "Ma'am, this is a MCDONALDS."

Ljubljana McDonald's had deep fried brie with cranberry sauce

Chilis, Bennigan's, TGIF, Fudds, all the classic American chains were in Dubai in the 90s.

I am Indian and had pork ribs at a Chilli's in Noida which is near Delhi and I really liked it. One of the few places here I found pork ribs and barbecue related stuff.

Peru has an unspeakable number of Chilis and they were always full. There were probably 4 of them within a 15 minute walk of my hotel in Lima. They're EVERYWHERE. Absolutely did not understand.

I had cheesecake factory at Shanghai Disneyland. It was a nice meal.

Most of Dubai seems like someone had an idea and they just rolled with it rather than do some research (or maybe it was just franchising fees/licenses). I imagine the conversation went like...

"Hey, what do people in America eat?"

"I was there on a business trip and remember seeing commercials for things called 'Red Lobster' and 'Ponderosa'. Perhaps we should put together a research grou--"

"Nah, build six of them and we'll see what happens."

Love that for them. May Cheddar Biscuits and Pondo Combos never die.

Did they add any merciless chili peppers grown by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum?