Drive-Thru Dreams - Adam Chandler Page 0,42
Taco Bells around the world have a lineup that would wet a stoner’s dry eyes with tears of joy, including chocolate and Baby Ruth–filled dessert quesadillas across Central America and Spain and a Nutella-banana hybrid in Cyprus. Or just top it all off with a flavored Frosty from your local Wendy’s—dulce de leche if you’re in Argentina, coffee jelly if you’re in the Philippines. And if you’re still not sated, there are always Toblerone McFlurries in Switzerland, Speculoos milkshakes at Steak ’n Shakes in Portugal, and pork-and-seaweed doughnuts at Dunkin’ Donuts in China. One could argue that the truest splendor of American fast food abroad is actually its tapestry of menu offerings around the globe. Simply put, it’s a beautiful world out there.
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In recent years, a term among marketeers and academics alike has come into favor in describing the deliberate modifications that global operations must make to function and prosper within a new community. For fast food, glocalization, which we can all agree is a terrible term, is more than adapting a menu to suit local preferences and norms. It’s also adjusting store amenities, décor, advertising, service standards, and more.
Alongside the Pushkin Square location, another steady contender for the title of world’s busiest McDonald’s is a Parisian store on the majestic Champs-Élysées. It sits in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe and on the former site of a nineteenth-century Rothschild mansion. Before we spit out our pastis in disgust, it’s worth noting that it is not a run-of-le-mill Mickey D’s. By some accounts, it’s a tourist destination. A recent redesign of the store was conceived by acclaimed industrial designer Patrick Norguet, and in addition to its own custom furniture and light boxes, the outpost offers table service as well as specialty burgers with such cheeses as chèvre and Camembert, croques made with melted Emmentaler, a high-tech ordering system, and an eighty-two-foot window displaying 180-degree views of the vaunted Parisian strip. C’est magnifique.
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But of all the places in the world that have tried to turn their fast-food culture up to 11, none come remotely close to competing with Japan. It’s well understood that Japan is a place of high innovation and pop-cultural obsession—a combination that makes for a fast-food scene that is completely bonkers. In 2012, Burger King Japan ran a promotion that allowed customers to add fifteen slices of bacon to a burger for a little over a dollar. For breakfast, Spam-and-egg sandwiches are standard fare. When Wendy’s Japan relaunched in 2011 after a two-year hiatus, it did so with a $16 burger topped with foie gras and truffles. A more steady item is the Roppongi, which is a cheeseburger topped with bacon, ketchup, a chunky mayo sauce, and a fried egg. At MOS Burger, the Japanese burger chain inspired by the incredible Los Angeles chili-burger chain Original Tommy’s, the standard cheeseburger comes covered in meat sauce on a rice bun. At Taco Bell, huge plates of nacho fries are on order with Asahi beers on draft, and the stores have open kitchens, colored wood-panel walls, and specialty lounges. Dinner at McDonald’s could be a MegaMac, Japan’s four-patty Big Mac interpretation. Breakfast could include its morning counterpart, the MegaMuffin, which is an Egg McMuffin stacked with two pieces of bacon and two pieces of sausage, plus egg, cheese, and a slather of ketchup. Meanwhile, at Pizza Hut Japan, one of the most popular selections in recent years has been a seafood-themed pizza topped with shrimp, squid, tuna, mayonnaise, broccoli, onions, and tomato sauce.
The true dark-meat pièce de résistance of Japanese fast food is Kentucky Christmas—a bona fide, decades-long annual ritual in which millions of Japanese families eat KFC around Christmastime. The origins of Kentucky Christmas are intensely debated, but the best version of the legend is that after a successful spring trial at the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan was established on July Fourth. Soon after, Takeshi Okawara, the manager of the country’s first KFC franchise, overheard a few expats in his store who couldn’t find turkey in Japan for their Christmas celebrations and had settled for fried chicken instead. Later, in a dream, Okawara was apparently struck by a vision of his countrymen sharing Christmas-themed barrels of fried chicken with their families. He woke up, wrote down the idea, then made it so. In 1974, KFC turned Okawara’s successful concept into a national marketing campaign called Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii! (Kentucky for Christmas!), which promptly sent the country into a