McDonald's profit slumps, sales fall worldwide
Thirty percent if I'm remembering this morning's news story correctly. 80% if I'm not. The chicken factory scandal probably hurt McDonald's worst here in Japan. Here, food safety scandals remain in mind for a long time after the last bit of chicken scrap has been scraped off someone's boot and thrown in with the meat going into the McNuggets.
My wife and I eat at Makku maybe once every other month when we're both too run down from work to dress up enough to make an appearance at MosBurger. In the time since the Chinese chicken factory scandal and now, we've eaten Makku three times and not once has she ordered anything with chicken. Of course, in the months before the scandal, not once was she served anything with chicken. At least, not chicken as it's commonly imagined. A bird with feathers and a beak. As opposed to some all-breast, no-beaked, featherless monstrosity quivering with pseudo-life inside a metal box with thousands of others of its genetically-spliced and heavily-hormone ilk.
Living free of McDonald's shame was nice, while it lasted. Back in the US, I often wore a disguise or at least sunglasses and bag over my head to pick up a couple of large orders of fries. For the longest time, here where there's a McDonald's approximately every 30 feet or so, I could freely indulge in my fry addiction along with a few black-suited office workers pecking away on both hamburgers and laptops because work doesn't cease even when you're away from the office on a dinner break, and dozens of high school girls who only dined there so they could spend hours after their meals perfecting their make-up using elaborate tackle-box like kits full of beautification powders, creams and stainless-steel tools. Plus the occasional homeless person, who would sit with me to ply me with some mangled English and touch me up for a few yen.
Now there is nothing McDonald's can do right as far as consumers are concerned. I'm told by my wife McDonald's fries have "seventeen different chemicals" in them. One of those chemicals is no doubt some kind of sodium compound and the rest simulate the taste and texture of something vaguely potato-like. Saturated with the products of advanced food science, my corpse will last uncorrupted for thousands of years, a monument both to my own amazing life and my poor culinary habits.
A saint for the Fast Food Age.
Showing posts with label Japanese fast food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japanese fast food. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
The taste of depression: Black burgers
Black burgers
Just joking. They're actually quite cheerful! These Burger King black burgers are like the Hamlet of burgers, at least visually. I don't know if they're prone to seeing ghosts or indecisive in pursuing revenge. Or, if you like your cultural references more modern, they're the Darth Vader of burgers. At least in the photo attached to the article they're somewhat Sith-like in that there are two of them. Always two. One master and one apprentice.
Burger King existed in Japan for a while then gave up because they couldn't compete with McDonald's all-pervasive presence and grip on the Japanese fast food consumer's appetite. Makku has been slipping of late, but Burger King had already made a comeback. I stop by the outlet in Shibuya on occasion to eat a Whopper, which I find a superior burger to the Big Mac or even Quarter Pounder. But I haven't seen one of these black burgers. This is their third go-around and I'll be giving them a miss again this time.
Why? Well, there are no Burger King restaurants in this city. And I'm not going to Tokyo anytime soon, probably not until the black burgers have retired to whatever mysterious realm of the senses from which they originally sprang. A culinary dreamland, no doubt. Nightmare to some, fantasy to others.
I admit I'm curious about the taste, but I do have two other concerns that are preventing me from finding one or both of these burgers. One is the cheese looks like a partially-melted plastic square, much like the monstrosity I once created with one of those electric molding toys popular in the 1960s-80s before people decided it was a bad idea to give kids molten rubber goo to play with. The other is I'm afraid the squid ink will discolor my mouth and make me look like Uncle Fester's skinny Goth little brother.
Just joking. They're actually quite cheerful! These Burger King black burgers are like the Hamlet of burgers, at least visually. I don't know if they're prone to seeing ghosts or indecisive in pursuing revenge. Or, if you like your cultural references more modern, they're the Darth Vader of burgers. At least in the photo attached to the article they're somewhat Sith-like in that there are two of them. Always two. One master and one apprentice.
Burger King existed in Japan for a while then gave up because they couldn't compete with McDonald's all-pervasive presence and grip on the Japanese fast food consumer's appetite. Makku has been slipping of late, but Burger King had already made a comeback. I stop by the outlet in Shibuya on occasion to eat a Whopper, which I find a superior burger to the Big Mac or even Quarter Pounder. But I haven't seen one of these black burgers. This is their third go-around and I'll be giving them a miss again this time.
Why? Well, there are no Burger King restaurants in this city. And I'm not going to Tokyo anytime soon, probably not until the black burgers have retired to whatever mysterious realm of the senses from which they originally sprang. A culinary dreamland, no doubt. Nightmare to some, fantasy to others.
I admit I'm curious about the taste, but I do have two other concerns that are preventing me from finding one or both of these burgers. One is the cheese looks like a partially-melted plastic square, much like the monstrosity I once created with one of those electric molding toys popular in the 1960s-80s before people decided it was a bad idea to give kids molten rubber goo to play with. The other is I'm afraid the squid ink will discolor my mouth and make me look like Uncle Fester's skinny Goth little brother.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
McDonald's Japan pulls profit forecast after China meat scandal
McDonald's Japan pulls profit forecast after China meat scandal
We watched clips from Ms. Casanova's press conference on the news last night. McDonald's Japan has taken a sucker punch from this chicken scandal, hasn't it? Especially with the news sales are down here. This is my simple way of putting it. In the fast food world there are different kinds of sales, some of which are better than others. My understanding is McDonald's overall isn't very happy with whatever sales they're getting here in Japan.
Which is really hard to imagine because McDonald's is one of those ubiquitous brands here, almost as common as any given convenience store chain. I mean, they're all over. Maybe they've oversaturated the market. Maybe public taste has changed. For whatever reason, McDonald's isn't having an easy time of it in Japan right now and the news some of their chicken is rotten or else came off the factory floor isn't likely to help.
Back in the US, we rarely eat at McDonald's. The store quality varies. Sometimes they're clean and you get excellent service. Other times the location is a shithole and the employees can't hide how angry they are that you came in to buy food from them. And then there's the food itself. Bad for you, not all that tasty, sometimes fresh, sometimes stale and old. I will admit to craving McDonald's French fries from time to time, but I haven't really had the desire to eat a hamburger there since I was approximately 16 years old.
But in Japan, it's a bit different. I got into the McDonald's habit when I taught English for the McDonald's of conversation schools and I need a quick lunch or dinner. That's a poor excuse for poor eating, but there you have it. The eikawa teaching cliché. It turned out I have a weakness for burgers with fried eggs on them. The wife has none of my snobbery and appreciation for the fast food burger hierarchy we adhered to back home, so to her, McDonald's is just another place to eat without stigma or shame. So we go there when we're feeling lazy or we've been working too hard to contemplate cooking or even going someplace fancier.
Like MosBurger.
Japanese McDonald's tend to be clean and efficient. You're not likely to get the same level of service you would at the better US locations, where employees might chat with you a little and make you feel like a valued person. Japanese fast food managers would scold the hell out of an employee taking such liberties here. Although back in my single days, one employee and I carried on a covert flirtation in my bad Japanese and her scattering of English. Little bon mots passed sotto voce and the like, little eye contact here and there, extra smiles and sympathetic facial expressions passed before I approached the register. I mean by Japanese McDonald's standards, she really took liberties. She even told me her name. But while you can't always expect that kind of personalized cash register experience, your dealings with McDonald's employees are many times more likely to be pleasant and positive than in the US. Also, you get a lot of specialty sandwiches that aren't available back home and many of them are surprisingly delicious. Spicy chicken whatevers and crazy beef this-n-that's.
The last time we went to McDonald's was just a few days before this scandal hit. And I had a McChicken sandwich, or whatever the hell it's called. Probably had a chicken patty right off the factory floor, probably walked on, too. Beats spit on, I suppose. And at least it was cooked thoroughly. While I probably guaranteed myself an extra heart attack within the next five years by eating it, I didn't notice any immediate after effects beyond no longer feeling hungry. Still, it looks as if we'll be eating at MosBurger and Freshness Burger for the foreseeable future. Sorry, Ronald.
We watched clips from Ms. Casanova's press conference on the news last night. McDonald's Japan has taken a sucker punch from this chicken scandal, hasn't it? Especially with the news sales are down here. This is my simple way of putting it. In the fast food world there are different kinds of sales, some of which are better than others. My understanding is McDonald's overall isn't very happy with whatever sales they're getting here in Japan.
Which is really hard to imagine because McDonald's is one of those ubiquitous brands here, almost as common as any given convenience store chain. I mean, they're all over. Maybe they've oversaturated the market. Maybe public taste has changed. For whatever reason, McDonald's isn't having an easy time of it in Japan right now and the news some of their chicken is rotten or else came off the factory floor isn't likely to help.
Back in the US, we rarely eat at McDonald's. The store quality varies. Sometimes they're clean and you get excellent service. Other times the location is a shithole and the employees can't hide how angry they are that you came in to buy food from them. And then there's the food itself. Bad for you, not all that tasty, sometimes fresh, sometimes stale and old. I will admit to craving McDonald's French fries from time to time, but I haven't really had the desire to eat a hamburger there since I was approximately 16 years old.
But in Japan, it's a bit different. I got into the McDonald's habit when I taught English for the McDonald's of conversation schools and I need a quick lunch or dinner. That's a poor excuse for poor eating, but there you have it. The eikawa teaching cliché. It turned out I have a weakness for burgers with fried eggs on them. The wife has none of my snobbery and appreciation for the fast food burger hierarchy we adhered to back home, so to her, McDonald's is just another place to eat without stigma or shame. So we go there when we're feeling lazy or we've been working too hard to contemplate cooking or even going someplace fancier.
Like MosBurger.
Japanese McDonald's tend to be clean and efficient. You're not likely to get the same level of service you would at the better US locations, where employees might chat with you a little and make you feel like a valued person. Japanese fast food managers would scold the hell out of an employee taking such liberties here. Although back in my single days, one employee and I carried on a covert flirtation in my bad Japanese and her scattering of English. Little bon mots passed sotto voce and the like, little eye contact here and there, extra smiles and sympathetic facial expressions passed before I approached the register. I mean by Japanese McDonald's standards, she really took liberties. She even told me her name. But while you can't always expect that kind of personalized cash register experience, your dealings with McDonald's employees are many times more likely to be pleasant and positive than in the US. Also, you get a lot of specialty sandwiches that aren't available back home and many of them are surprisingly delicious. Spicy chicken whatevers and crazy beef this-n-that's.
The last time we went to McDonald's was just a few days before this scandal hit. And I had a McChicken sandwich, or whatever the hell it's called. Probably had a chicken patty right off the factory floor, probably walked on, too. Beats spit on, I suppose. And at least it was cooked thoroughly. While I probably guaranteed myself an extra heart attack within the next five years by eating it, I didn't notice any immediate after effects beyond no longer feeling hungry. Still, it looks as if we'll be eating at MosBurger and Freshness Burger for the foreseeable future. Sorry, Ronald.
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