McDonalds: Edible or Not

2 things: 1. flash frozen food is a wonderful achievement. 2. Five Guys fries are shit.

As Dave Chang has said, you are buying into performance when you think fresh fries taste better. That's why every place that does it makes a visual show of it. To compensate for the worse flavor and texture.

Another thing about McDonald’s is they have indoor playgrounds and where I live it’s cold for half the year. I don’t feel great about it but those cold January days where I’m on my own with the two of em it’s really quite nice to have around

I like McDonalds. I eat there in Paris

If I were planning on eating regularly at a McDonalds, I think I would prefer to do so in France over any other nation. The French hold food in high esteem and demand higher standards than most other countries. Even the McDonalds corporation would have to conform to the French idea of edible food or perish.

they use a copper ring lined with tin for the egg mcmuffin

and 3x the butter in everything

I had some bespoke duck fat fries last night, and no way were they inferior to flash frozen fast food fries.

3x the butter

I seriously doubt that McDonalds in the USA uses any real butter for anything.

not smoking and drinking is an even bigger no brainer than all of those things, and good luck finding much support on that front on this board, lol.

not sure there’s a huge pro-tobacco lobby on this board in 2019

I correct myself. McDonalds began to use butter late in 2015, after a mere 75 years of operation.

"2 things: 1. flash frozen food is a wonderful achievement. 2. Five Guys fries are shit.

― $1,000,000 or 1 bag of honeycrisp apples (Sufjan Grafton)"

my problem with five guys, beyond the fact that everything on their menu has approximately five billion calories, is the complete lack of consistency for their food. again, we rep for artisanal bespoke everything and excoriate assembly-line processed food but mcdonalds is very good at delivering consistent quality. whereas five guys, you tell them what you want on your hamburger and half the time they fuck it up. i don't blame the employees for that, it's just obvious to me that mcdonalds' food delivery processes are superior to five guys'. this also matters with for instance chipotle where they advertise "natural" food and then have foodborne illness scares every year or so. i like their burritos but i'm disinclined to risk it. (though at the same time i have stopped eating at places that are too chickenshit to take a risk on alfalfa sprouts, simply because i don't like the implicit double standard there)

"Lol @ kids having better taste than adults. They also love play doh and boogers.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger)"

i will also rep for play-doh and boogers. again they're taboo so we don't eat them but let's not pretend either of those things taste bad.

"not eating meat should be a no-brainer too :o)

― 💠 (crüt)"

so here's where we acknowledge that everybody has different standards and for some people not buying from amazon and/or not eating meat is so obvious it's not even something they'd consider. i don't even think it's wrong for people to value a chicken sandwich more than they value me, probably there are people who I value less than a good chicken sandwich in practice, and those people would be well advised to not consider me a friend.

duck fat is the only good part of bespoke duck fat fries. Worth reading the history of the lawsuit that changed mcdonalds fries from beef fat if you haven't already. Place has some good stories.

I think the quarter pounders got way better once they switched to fresh beef a couple years ago. They’re yummy now imo.

Like I said, baby steps.

I really miss the beef-fat cooked fries.

i do wish Chick Fil A could just get out of the politically-tinged charitable giving game altogether because nowadays it's basically the only fast food I eat, not because the other stuff tastes bad so much as it often makes me feel like shit afterwards. I can manage CFA without feeling like a beached whale when it's finished.

I've only had it once, when I was stuck in the Philly airport for 5 hours years ago and figured what the hell. It was an ok chicken sandwich - they're all kind of the same - but certainly not good enough to want again, not least because the Popeye's sandwich (which I finally had) was at least as OK, but to my memory a lot better.

It helps that I live in a place with plenty of great hot dog/hamburger/etc stands/spots (yes, with excellent fresh-cut fries), so I have no real reason to go to fast food places. You want some local color, here's the guy down the street's response to Popeye's (and CFA):

Public Service Announcement! pic.twitter.com/uzEnBZbAKh

— Big Guys Sausages (@BigGuysSausages) November 13, 2019

I wonder what you think flash freezing does to the fries that is so bad? (outside of allowing for vastly improved made to order fries)

Nothing, I don't think, except that's what most fast food places do and I don't like most fast food fries very much.

could the root of it all be temperance? you don't want to enjoy your fries too much?

not because the other stuff tastes bad so much as it often makes me feel like shit afterwards.

Elitist. A true man of the people would eat McDonalds and tell your gut to shut up.

mcdonalds never really gives me the shits but it does make me feel like shit during the post-prandial dip

filet o fish is my jam

https://media1.tenor.com/images/f89d84ee257503022e78b604bf2e5acb/tenor.gif?itemid=7656662

Funny how I can be elitist for thinking McD's is crap but the ppl eating it on the reg in their car that I can't afford or their huge home I can't afford aren't.

In 'n' Out has it both ways (so to speak), as elitist (we're better than every other burger) *and* populist (everyone goes to In 'n' Out).

In 'n' Out is only "pretty good"

Their fries which are fresh, suck.

Funny how one can be elitist for thinking McD's is crap, but if you brown bag your lunch and it's mainly nutritious items like vegetables and fruit, some people think that is elitist, too, even though McD's is spendier.

For awhile, animal-style saved their fries for me but then they kept fucking that up too (cheese was never melted). Haven't been there in a few years, there's too many other better burger options.

Funny how I can be elitist for thinking McD's is crap but the ppl eating it on the reg in their car that I can't afford or their huge home I can't afford aren't.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Monday, December 2, 2019 2:05 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's not my fault you spent your paycheck on avocado toast, bro.

avocado toasts jokes are sooooooooo 2017

who the fuck cares what other people eat

but lol at trying to clown on someone for spending $$ on healthy tasty food at the expense of shit you truly don't need like a humongous home and SUV

It's almost like elitism is not entirely correlated with how much things cost.

it's almost like ppl overuse the term when snobbery would work better

Eating at McDonald's has become immensely more pleasant since they introduced the screens for you to enter and pay for your order and the bringing of your meal to your table. Those changes have made it far more likely that I will eat there than it was before.

not because the other stuff tastes bad so much as it often makes me feel like shit afterwards.

Elitist. A true man of the people would eat McDonalds and tell your gut to shut up.

― Mazzy Tsar (PBKR)

perhaps having the predilection for linking cause and effect _is_ elitist!

folks,

since they introduced the screens for you to enter and pay for your order

I know a lot of left-leaning people who are incensed by the job-killing march of automation.

I also know a lot of antisocial and/or misanthropic introverts who hate talking to people and love automated kiosks/self-checkout options.

When it gets REALLY interesting is when they turn out to be the selfsame people.

TBH I sometimes include myself in this tricky overlap: I want people to have jobs, but I sometimes enjoy not talking to them

i don't want people to have jobs at mcdonalds

filet-o-fish for life

i don't want people to have jobs at mcdonalds

So do you not want McDonald's to exist, or do you want it to exist but not have human workers? Honest question.

it's kinda dumb zero sum game thinking, the idea that the kiosks automatically equate to lost jobs. so far, all of the reports have shown otherwise, that companies have had to increase their staff as the automation has led to more orders coming in.

the idea that you're saving someone's job by going to the cashier is horseshit - greedy multinational corporations like McDonald's will cut labor whenever they can, kiosk or no kiosk. what isn't horseshit is that McDonald's is still underpaying their employees and deliberately underscheduling them, preferring to have a larger staff that works 15-20 hours a week rather than full-timers.

IIRC it's mainly mobile/delivery orders driving things up? To the extent that it's creating supply/labor problems

yeah, mostly because there's no control in place to manage the influx of orders. pre-online ordering, you could only get orders as fast as your staff could input them. now you can get slammed with a ton of online orders simultaneously, without warning. and Uber Eats/Postmates/etc orders as well.

the Popeyes near me, when the new sandwich was re-released, were basically obliterated - ran out of beverages many days because in addition to the insane walk-up and drive-thru traffic, there were tons of people placing Uber Eats orders and there were maybe five employees in the whole building.

I had occasion to talk with a regional manager for Macca’s the other week. He said the screens had driven a significant uptake in per transaction sales, people are less embarrassed with upsizing and adding on through the screen. That said 70% of sales are through the drive through window with delivery driving growth. UberEATS basically created a new category for them.

So do you not want McDonald's to exist, or do you want it to exist but not have human workers?

the latter. humans should mostly paint

sry to strike poses; obv utopia isn't coming soon. but it's coming sooner than the effects of automation under capitalism are gonna be alleviated by telling someone you want a big mac

The jobs that cant be automated - preparing the food and maintaining hygiene standards - still need to be done, only with the screens there are less staff to do them. When you don't use the screen, you're pulling a staff member away from a job that they need to complete. In effect it is adding extra work to their day, making it harder for them to leave on time. These companies aren't going to add staff, they're just going to command the existing limited pool of staff to work harder/faster. I don't like to see jobs and hours cut but for the workers on the frontline, my interruption of their tasks to do a job that can easily be done by a screen doesn't help them. I imagine its really frustrating having some boomer come up and harass you about menu options when you just want to finish refilling the McFlurry machine or whatever.

Good discussion

Thanking u all for the license to continue combining vaguely liberal pieties with antipathy for saying things to ppl