08.27.08
Posted in Beijing, Food, McDonald's in China, Olympics at 13:46 by Nator
A classic moment today at my local McDonald’s: A young girl was eating an early lunch at about 11:30 am with an older guy, probably her grandfather. Gramps wasn’t hungry, but he was definitely thirsty, as he took several large swigs from his bottle of Red Star erguotou (in the classic green flask). He even gave her the drunken finger-point, wagging it in front of her face as he loudly passed along some sage advice. Alas, I didn’t bring my camera.
Merchandising note: The Olympics theme has already been pushed out in favor of a series of ads and toys for Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
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06.25.08
Posted in Food, Hong Kong, McDonald's in China at 23:04 by uncleronald
Many interesting things to cover. First and most imporantly, the Egg McMuffin is available 24 hours a day. It’s option number nine in the photo:
This fantastic option is essentially negated by the lack of coffee refills outside of breakfast hours–which, by the way, last until 11am, instead of 10am as is standard on the mainland.
The coffee is decent, but with so many good coffee shops around, it tastes relatively worse. It is nice to get real half-and-half with one’s coffee, though, instead of the faux half-and-half substitute provided in the mainland.
The sausage here tastes much stronger and better than the sausage patties used in the rest of China. I suppose it’s imported from the U.S., while the China meat is processed domestically.
Will try the pancakes soon….
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05.09.08
Posted in Chinese Nationalism, Food, Industry, McDonald's in China, Olympics, Rumors at 16:16 by SHTig
China’s chip over the monks (and Coca-Cola’s LIES about China)
True to our name, Truth from Facts weighs in on the Coke controversy sweeping the Chinese blogs.
Read the rest of this entry »
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01.15.08
Posted in Beijing, Food, McDonald's in China at 19:55 by uncleronald
Picked up my new breakfast discount card today. The card for lunch and dinner isn’t coming out until February. No price changes from the last card, which was valid the last four months of 2007.
The coffee had a strange taste–almost like a chemical flavor. I’m not sure if it’s something new or if this is how it always tastes, and I am only aware of it now because I just returned from three weeks in the US. I can’t remember it tasting different after any of mt other trips home, though.
In other McD’s news, the constantly changing “third pie” is now red bean. Ugh.
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12.08.07
Posted in Beijing, Food, McDonald's in China at 16:12 by uncleronald
A few weeks ago I noted the new peach pie at McDonald’s. Thankfully, the “limited time offer” is over, I suspect due to weak sales. One employee told me it had stopped on December 3. I still don’t understand why they don’t bring back the apple pie–on two separate occasions recently I heard customers request it.
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11.20.07
Posted in Beijing, Food, McDonald's in China at 13:33 by uncleronald
My breakfast coffee on Sunday tasted like what McDonald’s calls “milk tea”–strongly brewed black tea with milk and sugar. (A friend of mine who lived in Hong Kong calls this “pantyhose tea” because many people use a sexy pantyhose sock to hold the tea leaves when steeping.) My guess is that an employee either accidentally used the tea pot for coffee or mistook the last of a pot of tea for coffee and poured it into the into the coffee pot to free up a pot for the next batch.
I brought my coffee up to the counter and told them the problem. One woman smelled my cup and said, “No, this is definitely coffee.” For the next five minutes I told them that I wasn’t claiming it was tea, but rather had somehow acquired the flavor of tea mixed with coffee. They countered by constantly repeating that it was definitely coffee and definitely not tea. Finally a manager came over and just poured me a new cup from a pot that I had already confirmed to be 100% coffee. These kinds of stubborn arguments with customers are common at Chinese restaurants, where servers often seem more concerned with winning a pointless argument than making sure the customer is happy. McDonald’s is usually pretty good about training its employees to avoid these arguments, but this one had the entire line of cashiers against me. (In case you’re wondering, no, there is absolutely no chance that I was wrong. I drink several cups of McD’s coffee almost every day, and I know what it should taste like. I also tasted all three pots–one with pure coffee, one with pure tea, and one with the mystery mix that had elements of both.)
SHTig’s Guess: A McDonald’s employee used a sexy panythouse sock to prepare uncleronald’s coffee.
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11.08.07
Posted in Beijing, Food, McDonald's in China at 01:25 by uncleronald
McDonald’s released a new peach pie a few days ago, and I tried it for the first time today. Disappointing. The peach chunks (assuming that’s what they are) have no discernable flavor, which is instead supplied by some peach-like essence that tastes like candy. I give it a D.
What was wrong with apple pie? They had it, took it away, brought it back, and took it away again. Banana was decent as well. I guess this means I’m staying with pineapple.
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