Today we ate lunch at McDonald's. It's located in a multi-story department store downtown. Let me say this: eating at McDonald's in China is a fabulous experience. It's downright pleasant.For starters, the workers are friendly; they don't bludgeon you with their surliness the way that the burnouts who staff U.S. mickey d's do. And they're clean. As soon as you finish eating a worker appears seemingly out of nowhere to clean the spot you've vacated. And the food is hot -- even the french fries.
The best part, though, is that the McDonald's restaurants here sell old-school pies -- the kind that are deep-fried and have that flaky, puckered skin (none of this baked crap that they switched to in the U.S.). They sell apple and some other kind (I can't quite tell what it is, but it's purple in color).
One other thing I've observed -- you can ask for plastic gloves with your food when your order -- the kind of gloves that food handlers wear in the U.S. It seems that the folks here don't like to touch their food with their hands, so they tend to do one of two things: use a glove or keep their burgers half-wrapped in the wrapper they come in. Some people, like me, are just barbarians and go at it bare hands and all.
2 comments:
Sooo glad you and D. have made it safely to China! Keep on blogging - you've been to my sad little town, so you certainly know that I am living vicariously through you. Now you must muster up the courage to sample the purple fried pie to determine its origin.
I sampled the McDonald's in Taipei; it's very similar to what you describe, sans the gloves. Did you notice a larger selection of fried chicken items on the menu? Apparently much of Asia worships at the altar of the "wise and inscrutable" Colonel Sanders. Also, hordes of teenagers would study there, nosily chatting away amongst towers of textbooks. Totally different feel compared to the shitpits here in the states.
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