The Mega Mac is Proving to be a Mega Hit!
I can’t believe it… That’s right, I said it! I honestly can’t believe that in the land of kaitenzushi, Yoshinoya, combini’s, Mos Burger and U-don shops that MacDonalds is not only doing well but making a killing!
According to this article by Yahoo News, McD’s net profit has increased more then 25 times to 1.55 billion yen ( 12.79 million US) in 2006. That’s a hell of a lot of special sauce!
McDonald’s Holdings Company Japan predicted net profit would nearly triple in the current year to 4.5 billion yen, on higher revenue of 375 billion yen.”The company will continue to focus on our core hamburger business,” a statement said. “McDonalds Japan can achieve sustainable growth by enriching its menu and investing in our restaurants to provide customers with places according to their lifestyle.”
The article says that McD’s is being health conscious and giving its customers more choices thus increasing profit. But I think that’s complete crap. The salads are just about as fatty as the hamburgers and with the introduction recently of the Mega Mac, well… that whole health argument flies out the window. (That is, if it can fit out the window!)
I met some people in Tokyo once who told me Macu was a Japanese company, since there are so many of them in Japan, they concluded McD’s was a Japanese firm. I had to tell them it started with Ray Kroc a long time ago in California. They were astounded to learn that, just as they had never head of the Rape of Nanking. OUCH!
February 9th, 2007 at 6:19 pmWell, here in Italy they usually insult the junk-food companies, and they always complaining how they are killing the real italian food. The funniest part is that many of them think only non-italians eat there, when MOST of the people are 100% italians…
February 9th, 2007 at 7:29 pmThe salads may be fattening too but most people don’t know that. So, thinking you’re eating health food makes you more healthy. It’s the power of the mind, it works like that.
February 10th, 2007 at 12:12 amI won’t eat McDonald’s food anymore, its too salty, the splenda that they cover everything in forces me to take a huge McCrap 1/2-1 hour after I eat there, the meals, despite being high calorie, high fat, cholesterol laden monstrosities still somehow aren’t even filling; and their facilities are atrocious. But more than that, there were three experiences that ruined McDonalds for me.
1. When I was a little kid I loved chicken nuggets. I couldn’t go more than three days without them, or else I would drive my parents crazy. Then one day, while biting into a chicken nugget, I tasted something strange. Looking down I found that my chicken nugget was green on the inside with brown chucks. I proceeded to projectile vomit into my own lap, the McDonalds bag, and on my family.
February 10th, 2007 at 6:09 am2. When I was around 12, my father and I ordered 2 big macs only to find someone apparently whiped there ass with them. Seriously, they were crushed flatter than a normal Mc Cheeseburger, all the toppings had fallen out of the burger onto the other side of the box, and when I took off the top bun, there appeared to be a brownish substance that resembled mayonnaise in consistency. Needless to say, we both did not eat that night.
3. Around 16 I was eating at a McDonalds with one of my friends, and he pulled what appeared to be pube from between his teeth. He took the hamburger up to the counter, and they offered him a free meal, he insisted on a refund instead.
tlxtftrf: I’m frankly impressed how many chances you gave the company before deciding to never eat there again. You must be a forgiving soul.
February 10th, 2007 at 7:14 amWireless broadband….mmmmmmmm
I have eaten at many McDonalds, and there are differences between East Asia, the US and (shudder) the UK. This is more due to local work ethics than anything else, I think. It also helps explain why so many Brits are vegetarians. I certainly considered it while I lived there.
Duo, salads are of course not fattening. Dressing is, and I have seen salads literally swimming in dressing. Well, literally floating anyway.
McDonald’s salads are expensive and awful, even before the dressing goes on. They are one of the few companies in Japan that imports lettuce, for one thing. The price of a salad set will buy you a very nice, fresh teishoku just about anywhere in Japan.
Stick to the Mac. It’s terribly delicious.
February 10th, 2007 at 8:07 amYou give me too much credit, RYO. I still get sick whenever I see a picture of a chicken nugget, but originally I thought that it was a one dish deal. After all, no one can tell you just where a nugget comes from on a chicken (it is actually mechanically separated chicken, so technically it comes from everywhere, but my parents still ate hamburgers from there and my mother (a small midwestern town girl) could point out exactly where the cuts of meat put into a hamburger came from. After seeing my parents eat these for a while without dying or getting sick, I figured that hamburgers were safe.
As for the big macs, even when they’re made correctly, they still look sick. Besides whenever you eat fast food you have to look at it first (at least I do). Face it, you’re being fed a cheap meal prepared by a company that employs lazy teens who think its the height of humor to spit in your food, and older adults who are either felons or too stupid to even work in retail. Sadly, it wasn’t forgiveness, but fatalism that allowed me to let this slip.
As for the third time, I was really high and my munchies precluded my reasoning. In addition my friend was also stoned and was taking me out to eat, and it would have been rude to turn him down.
Hope you don’t think less of me for that
February 10th, 2007 at 8:35 amYou know, I have not eaten food at MCDonald’s for the last 15 years. Just stopped completely. But i do by for the coffee. Good coffee, and refills nice.
February 10th, 2007 at 10:32 amMos Burger blows McDonalds away. The avocado burger rocks!:mrgreen:
February 10th, 2007 at 12:05 pmJust wait until Whataburger gets to Japan. Pure heaveeenn.. Hm I used to think In-N-Out Burger was the best thing on earth until I ate one recently after few years, and why did I use to think that exactly? I - have - no - clue.
No ghoti I know about the salad, but it’s not just the dressing but also the preservatives they lace the veggies with. You can lose that behind the seat in your car and find it a year later and it still looks fresh.
February 10th, 2007 at 12:15 pmtlxtftrf (”Hope you don’t think less of me for that.”):
February 10th, 2007 at 12:22 pmHardly. But thanks for the clarification. I remember working in the kitchen of a pizza chain restaurant back in high school. That’s when I learned to never trust a teenage food preparer with your meal (unless you’re high, I suppose).
Concerning McDonald’s coffee, Consumer Reports recently rated it higher than Starbucks.
February 10th, 2007 at 10:38 pmJp, that’s what I’ve been telling people. They laugh until they try it, which makes sense since their previous coffee was vile, when it wasn’t too hot to taste at all. A decent coffee for 100 yen. At Starbucks, I figure I’m paying for a comfortable place to sit, and the coffee is just included.
Duo, I don’t know what they use to do that to their lettuce, but there are many vegetable preservative methods that don’t involve chemicals or anything dangerous. Still, I wonder if there is any nutrition at all in such old, dry lettuce. By the way, you should vacuum your car more often!
One of the things I like about Japan, is that teenage servers here simply don’t do things like spitting in food.
February 11th, 2007 at 8:40 am“I met some people in Tokyo once who told me Macu was a Japanese company, since there are so many of them in Japan, they concluded McD’s was a Japanese firm.”
Haha… I have one friend who thought so many companies were Japanese for the same reason: The Body Shop, various fast food places, 7-eleven etc.
I hate McDonald’s…. I only really eat Japanese food. But some stuff at Japanese McDonald’s does look pretty good.
February 13th, 2007 at 9:53 amStarbucks. Bleh.
I don’t drink coffee and I can’t understand why people who do would pay those kinds of prices… continuously. The few people I do know who own up to buying coffee there even admit it’s not all that good. So I ask them why they bother at all, then, and as I response I get this:
And they have one brand of teas… which I don’t like.
Strangely, everyone I know living in my neighbourhood (Little Italy) don’t go to Starbucks, either. They put one in the ‘hood and it’s only doing OK… mostly, I suspect, cause it was one of the first places that offered free wifi. But I sure do notice a lot of people in there who don’t look like they’re from ’round here - damned ‘Bridge n’ tunnel’ crowd!
As for McDonalds - I have a Big Mac every six months or more. I don’t know why, either…
February 13th, 2007 at 10:51 am