fast food follies, part 1

[calimac]

Mark Evanier found a list of the 50 top fast food chains in the US in sales, and he's been blogging his reactions to all of those that he's been to. All right, I can do that too. I'm not here to deconstruct economics or nutrition - others do that better than I - I'm just looking for something to eat in an imperfect world. I don't eat fast food really often, but sometimes I'm in a hurry and just want a known quality, so I have a few favorites. And a lot of un-favorites. I will not be evaluating the fries, by the way, because I don't eat potato.

McDonald's
My father would sometimes take the troops here when I was a kid. I don't know why. None of us liked it very much, and it took a long time (by fast-food standards) to special-order the kind of burgers we all wanted, which was just the meat and the bun. Today I will only eat at McDonald's if I'm in desperate need of a little belly-timber and there's nothing else around, in which case I get some chicken nuggets, which 1) are served immediately without special-ordering, 2) have interesting choices of sauces, and 3) taste as if they were once in the same county as an actual chicken.

Subway
I'm not sure I've ever eaten here, because I don't care for most subs any more than I care for hamburgers with all the fixins. But they certainly are ubiquitous.

Starbucks
I lived in Seattle back when there literally was only one Starbucks, the one in Pike Place. But even then I never patronized it, and I still don't. I don't drink coffee, and I only go in when I'm with other people who want to go there. And I've never found a single thing there I wanted to either drink or eat, except a cup of water.

Wendy's
Alas, my lost love. I lived around the corner from a Wendy's thirty years ago, and grabbed a burger there often. In those days the menu was entirely a la carte, which meant that you could order it however you wanted and it would still come fast, with a hot, freshly-cooked patty of good quality meat. I also liked their salad bar, because it had French dressing. Unfortunately, they've cut down the menu. After a period of options so confusing even the staff didn't understand them, now all the burgers come default with cheese. This means that even if you say "NO CHEESE" very loudly and clearly, at least half the time they'll still put the cheese on by reflex. This is devastating at the drive-thru when you don't discover it until miles later. Also, it means you now have to pay cheeseburger prices even if it's not a cheeseburger. I've pretty much given up on Wendy's.

Burger King
I tried this once, decades ago. The burger looked good, but the meat tasted like rubberized plastic. You don't want to know my childhood nickname for this place. The fact that they're tasteless enough to call their signature product a "whopper" doesn't help.

Taco Bell
No. I will not eat here, or at any of its pseudo-Mexican knockoffs, under any circumstances. So take this as read for all the similar chains on the list.

Pizza Hut
It's a cracker with cheese on it. Not what I want in a pizza. (I've never tried any other large-chain pizza, which also wipes off a considerable portion of the list of 50 right there.)

(to be continued)

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I recently had a non-breakfast McDonald's for the first time in many-a month (if not years). They sent me a coupon, so I got two somethings (bacon and swiss?) They were awful. They're Egg McMuffins are okay, but really.

I live across the street from a Subway, so it's my fast food of choice. Pretty good, really, if you pick a good bread and get the veggies you like. Not all that cheap anymore, but still okay.

I used to like Wendy's, but several times in a row their drive-in put cheese on my burger even though I had explicitly said I didn't want cheese. They're cheese makes me sick. Sometimes, even in-store, I can see remnants of where the cheese used to be. I send those back. I still like their basic burgers (and the chili sauce), but the service is too iffy. And I've tried, over the years, in several locations.

The Taco Bell, down the street and across from the McDonald's, is okay if you like Generic Mexican Glop. Sometimes, that's just what I'm in the mood for, and they're drive through gets the orders right.

To be honest, I'm not a pizza fan. Sure, a good pizza is a good meal, but any decent pizza will be expensive and I can get better food for cheaper. I don't eat at Pizza Hut (or any of the places with pissed-off, underpaid workers who have to come in when they're sick). Frankly, if I'm in the mood for Generic Pizza Glop I'll walk across the street to Little Caesar's, pay $5 + tx for a pepperoni, and just walk home.

Your list probably doesn't include the Generic Chinese Takeout places, of which one is across the street and several are within delivery/pick up range. All with nearly identical menus, with minor but notable variations in quality. The closest one is my least favorite, but I can call an order in, slowly put on my coat, then walk over and pick it up. Passable hot-and-sour and egg drop soups. Haven't done that in a while.

Further aside: The strip mall across the street (with the Office Max, Great Clips and Radio Shack) has the Subway, the Chinese take-out and a Mexican pandera. It's not uncommon to mix and match.

Across the other street is a White Castle. Only in emergencies, but it's open 24-hours (usually) and sometimes the only thing around.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to find my problems with Wendy's confirmed. It's not cheese I hate, it's American cheese.

Generic Chinese isn't on the list, but Panda Express is. I'll get to it.

White Castle is on the list, but I've never been to one.

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

Panera is actually kind of nice. The first one I encountered was in Iowa where it was basically the best restaurant in the area. And I will go to a Starbucks when I need coffee and there is no better alternative. But it mostly is a list of junk.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Panera will get a modest thumb up from me when we get that far.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

We have a Subway a few blocks away. We eat there rarely, and only when we really want a change from the Mexican that's our other local option. Their food is impressively flavorless.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Being both a keen cook and veggie means that I have never in my entire life used a fast food joint give or take our ubiquitous 'chippy' as they've caught on to the fact that there's a market for veggie food in a way that the chains just haven't- saints preserve us from the 'veggieburger' and all its kith and kin! I'm spoiled for pizza by having spent way too long in Italy over the years to accept it from anywhere else.

Doesn't sound as though I'm missing a lot!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Some of the better places - see the second installment for some - are quite good for vegetarians. And I'm not talking about veggie burgers.

As for pizza, do not judge American pizza, the kind in independent pizza parlors and small well-run chains, by its mass fast-food epigone. Good American pizza is a far, far better thing, and differs more from fast-food pizza in style than the latter does from Italian pizza. It's its own thing and is worthy of appreciation thereby. But British pizza (well, English and Welsh, as I never tried pizza in Scotland) is, as I trust you're aware, uniformly awful, both thin and soggy. A Welsh acquaintance of mine, visiting the US for the first time, was taken by his hosts to their local pizza parlor, which I've also been to. His report:

After years of American visitors complaining long and loud about the "Disgusting" things sold as pizza in Britain, I was determined to sample a real American pizza and see for myself if they were all they were cracked up to be. ... I sank my teeth into my first ever genuine, honest-to-god, authentically ethnic American pizza -- and it was delicious! I had discovered the perfect food. Compared to this, every pizza I'd eaten previously was like a polystyrene frisbee, thinly spread with a pre-masticated mulch.

[19-crows.livejournal.com]

I love hamburgers but only with either nothing on them, or only bacon and cheese. I only order the latter at fairly high end establishments. Anyway, for years Burger King was my favorite because you really can get it your way - McDonald's can't seem to manage a plain hamburger - but now In 'n' Out has surpassed them.

I love Taco Bell tacos too. Sometimes I want a real taco and sometimes I want Taco Bell.

My food standards are pretty low.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Given my Italian ancestry, pizza is supposed to be thin- Umbrian pizza is amongst the thinnest- but it's also supposed to be cooked in a wood oven with the best quality of cheeses and toppings. I don't like the 'deep crust' beloved of some USians. UK so called pizza is, as your friends states, uniformly disgusting.

I'd guess that the better quality US chains won't have made it to this side of the pond. It's a particularly unfortunate British genius to take something potentially good as a concept and reproduce a seventh rate version so you get slow fast food.

Thank the lord for Indian restaurants! :o)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

That's why I say that good American pizza is a different thing than other kinds of pizzas. But while all of it is thicker than Italian pizza, its thickness varies. Chicago "deep dish" is the thickest; it's a kind of meat and bread pie. New York style pizza is much thinner, and is derived from Neapolitan, whose name it sometimes retains.

You'd certainly have to come here to have it. Few quality American pizzerias have established branches outside their city of origin, let alone the country.

Thank the lord for Indian restaurants! Indeed. Also the Chinese: I haven't had much Chinese in Britain, but the restaurants (as opposed to the cheap take-away shops) have been excellent. I remember a particularly good place in Mayfair from years ago, and one out the Banbury Road that was a regular stop for me in Oxford.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

We're off to meet a friend for Vietnamese food in London on Friday. There are far fewer of these here so the ones there are, like our favourite in Pimlico, tend to be really excellent.