You can get a burger and fries (or a bunch of other things) at many of bar and grill type places around here for less than mcdonalds. Several of the ones near me will do carry out if you want to call ahead and put an order in too. Hell, I got a steak dinner for like 15$ a few weeks ago.

I've eaten there three times in five years. Each time was due to a social situation. Overpriced and nasty is how I rate them.

I actually miss mcdonalds here in Japan because it's actually pretty tasty and did pretty fun collabs with IPs my kids and I like (except the pokemon and chiikawa ones, those were just stupid and irresponsible). Haven't had it in a year or so to keep my elbows up and support my Canadian brothers and sisters.

Now, I just go to MOS burger or just make my own. Unfortunately, the independent ones are a bit too pricey for my food budget.

Wife doesn't like burgers, had never been to Steak n Shake. (Must be a Filipino thing because she cant' cook 'em either.)

First bite, "This is the burger I have been looking for!" She loved the seasoning so much she bought 2 bottles, $5 each.

Forget what we paid, but it was on par with McDonalds, including the $5 tip. The restaurant itself and waitress kinda sucked, "Do you have coffee?" "We're out." So make some? This is a restaurant. Something else basic was out, I forget. But the point stands, a proper sit-down meal was the same cost as McDonalds, except delicious.

And don't start me on local Mexican dives and trucks. I can get 3 deluxe street tacos for $10, less than some of the gross combos at McDonalds. And that place is a little high!

$59.99 without the app

Plus $20 handling fee

This is the original. Polymer clay.

Nah, it is just a really big hand

Anything is edible if you believe it.

Ai generated?

This is how I feel about certain expensive meal replacement supplements.

its called that because you need 5 guys to finish 1 meal!

Calm down with the inaults

a large is just Too Many Chips.

I've yet to encounter such a phenomenon.

Except they will give you a parcel of chips instead of fries

Who the fuck goes to a chippy and orders a "Minimum fries" lol???

If you've never eaten Belgian fries, they're really good

... sigh ...

Of all the degenerate things I've done as a horny kid, fucking my McDonalds meal is not one of them.

... but, its a fucking hilarious typo, so it stays, lol

9 yo

Damn, kids really be starting young these days

I'm in the US and my fries come as pictures. San Francisco Bay Area

Yeah. These are from the San Francisco Bay Area as the other commenter said lol

They are so understaffed these days that they are no longer fast anymore.

I think the real reason they exist is because of addiction. They've got people addicted to 7,000 times the amount of recommended daily sugar, fat, and salt content.

They're still trying to rake in that high despite it now costing 5x the price, at 1/3 the quickness and 1/2 the quality.

If they started from scratch today - I don't think they would go far.

Not where I live, no. And wouldn't I rather take them to an actual restaurant? I mean, if we leave the house to go eat somewhere I'd rather take the family to a nice place and eat something good.

Dining in and cooking tends to take thirty min to an hour.

Don't know how much faster the fast food is, when I've been to that burger king I tell you I have been fighting with that automatic ordering machine for 10 good minutes before I actually succeeded.

If I have to go to the shop, order, get the food and take it back home I'm better off cooking at home.

I never used them, but I guess at this point if you really don't want to cook nor to go out you're better off with those applications which allow you to order food at your place from any restaurant.

I can understand eating out when you have no time to get back home, but then I have much better options where to eat at the same price or even cheaper.

Just spend like $3 more, go to Cava, and end up with enough leftover for another 2 meals

At least around me, I feel like the drive-thru is often noticeably slower than parking and going inside. The last time I got McDonald's at the drive-thru, I was waiting for over a half hour to get my order. To make it worse, I was stuck in the inner lane, so I couldn't even say "fuck it" and drive off until I was third in line. At that point, I had spent a good 25 minutes waiting, so the sunk cost fallacy kicked in and I waited some more. When I got to the window to pick up my order, it wasn't even warm.

I don't get fast food as much anymore, but when I do, I order through the app and go inside to pick it up. At least then it doesn't feel like I'm stuck in gridlocked traffic.

That's crazy! I hope the sales from the McDonalds branches, in Vietnam, are at least contributing to the country in a meaningful way through taxes etc.
(I don't know about that sort of thing, I just hope the huge difference in price at least has some benefit to locals).

Not sure what the rules are where you are, but one way is to check the menu for calories if they need to be listed.

Then you can tell exactly what the size difference is between a small, medium and large, assuming they aren't lying about the calories, and that they actually fill it to the proper size listed per the calories.

wdym reusable? You take it back to the restaurant next time you go? You eat in and they collect it after you leave?

Uh-huh..

If this place was Reddit it would be called Karma farming.

The bitching about McDonalds is the shit as the bitching about Pick Up Trucks.

Oh I was alive in 70s. I saw Star Wars and Jaws in their openning run.

WTF does that have to do with what I posted?

I'm not defending Mcds , but everyone can choose to eat whatever they want. Everyone has fast food of any kind everywhere,. It's not my place to judge whether they eat it or not. You never hung out with your friends at a fast food joint because that's what you could all afford at the time ?

I think the spirit of the post is that all fast food horribly shifted to being terrible in the last decade. Mcds happens to be one of the most prominent ones. KFC is cardboard now, Chinese food containers are now half of what they used to be. A Korean fried chicken place cut the wings in two and called them separate pieces, so you have two buy two now to get the same amount of chicken as before. With the smaller portion , the price has gone up 50% across the board.

Maybe some countries have not seen their food quality and price shift so quickly, but in Corporate America, consumers are getting squeezed like never before. The dollar has lost 50% spending power everywhere in America.

One of my favorite local takeout lobster sandwiches used to be $17 less than 10 years ago, now it's $40, and it's the same size as before.

I ordered 4 cheeseburgers and devoured them all in a single sitting. I need bigger burger so I'm full!!

HEHE Truth.

This is always my concern. Actually frying something takes minutes, but heating, cooling, straining, and storing significant volumes of oil just doesn't justify the convenience. If I want fried food, I'm going to a restaurant.

Drink it

Air fryer and you don’t need any oil. And they come out as crisp as if they were fried in oil, and they’re healthier.

Air fryer really changed the way I cook.

You can reuse it several times by running it through a cheese cloth. Otherwise just put it in a jar/pitcher/empty oil bottle.

Cocktails. Just need some bottles.

Make churros. Mix same amount water and flour with a bit of salt. Press out with a churro maker, fry for 2 minutes, cool, sprinkle sugar and serve with hot chocolate

You don't actually need that much oil if you use a parchment paper origami box

I fry other things, and know the oil struggle, but for fries, I've been using the air fryer recently with success. (America's test kitchen recipe works)

It’s call use a smaller pot and less oil. You don’t need 2 litres every time you fry…

Restaurants also reuse oil a bunch by simply filtering out the big particles.

One the oil has cooled down and run through a filter you can store it again for later.

My wife fries them in a cast iron pan with a little oil.

Get a dedicated appliance which also stores the oil. Put the whole appliance away, including the oil, after use. Been doing this for years and you can store oil like this forever

This is another reason why night shift workers are unhealthy. Sorry. Normally we think it's the lack of sun or vitamin D..

Use the overhead fan. Also if you filter and store the oil once it’s cooled down it won’t smell at all.

Yeah they will be far far superior. Especially if you blanch and double fry the potatoes. Salt levels you can determine yourself too. Make it as salty as you want.

Go away RFKjr

I am, helped break my junk food addiction. Now I never pay for it.

That's a good question, answer is generally that it depends. Do I want to spend more money on stuff? Of course not.

But if the price is the same or negligibly more, then I'm better off not incurring the bodily damage of consuming excess calories. The smaller the default size of the suggested meal (eg, a combo) the better, unless it hits the point where it makes me order a second meal or extra sides.

That preference reflects my own privilege, health perspective, and lack of self-control though. I know it's a different call for everyone.

If you eat at McDonald's you deserve everything you get.

For real. It's like when people think Kraft Singles are representative of American cheese

I mean, for context, I was like 8 years old when I first got here. I didn't really know the difference between fastfood vs "real" restaurants so I just categorically grouped them all together.

Honestly, I still don't really know what "real" western food is.

I remember going along with family to a cousin's sweet 16 birthday party and I think its was western cuisine or something... like I heard they spend a lot of money on it (the cousin's parents were kinda middle class rich) and I disliked most of the food they served, didn't eat much, don't even remember what they served. Ended up going home kinda hungry lol.

I think I just go so used to Chinese food, I didn't feel confident exploring other types of "western" food... other than like burgers, pizzas, cheesesteaks, subway sandwiches / hoagies. Which I know, living here for like over a decade, I still don't feel quite "American" because of my picky eating habits.

Good, always use vet-approved pet food for your pets.

But I’ll definitely take some fried potatoes covered with salt for myself. Nothing artificial about it, just processed.

What exactly is artificial about potatoes, oil, and salt? Which of those ingredients specifically are artificial?

Because you sound insufferable when you call fries "slop."