I'm Lovin' It

Italy's great, for sure.  The people, the cities, the food, all of it.  But let's say you get sort of tired of part of it.  Maybe, after one week of eating nothing but pasta and dried meat, you want some of that good old American cuisine to refresh your palate.

errday

Well, lucky for you, Italy's got your back.  There's a McDonald's in every major city center and every major train station, so you can get your grease on whenever you want.

This McDonald's is right next to the cathedral in Ferrara

But what are you going to order? Getting Italian McDonald's must be so confusing - the names are probably all different and stuff.

Well, true, but different in a good way, because the names are all English and just as explanatory as American burger names.  If you're me, there's really only one option, however:

Crispy McBacon, or, as it says on the box, His Crispiness

Because seriously, who sees a name like that and thinks, "ehh, I'll pass"?  And it is indeed good.  Just like mother used to make, assuming she was an associate at McDonald's.  More accurately, just like your high school friends used to make before they quit.  The only difference is that instead of using ketchup, they use what seems to be Thousand Island dressing, which kind of surprises me because I would have assumed that if Italy was swapping out ketchup, it would be for tomato sauce.

Also, for those curious, here's the text on the box:
"'Crispy' means this is something else: tasty bovine meat [Editor's note: hell yes], two slices of crispy bacon [I'm still not positive that bacon and pancetta are the same thing, but close enough]..."

Wait a second - the next phrase is "deliziosa salsa bacon"... does that mean the sauce is not Thousand Island, but BACON SAUCE???? What I thought was relish was actually bacon? Why is this sandwich not in America? McDonald's, wake up!

Continued: "... delicious bacon sauce and a strong and unmistakable personality.  The true classics never fade away."  Amen, Crispy McBacon box, amen.

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Italian McDonald's is in general a bit different from the American original (and I'm going to say better). I've never gotten McDonald's to go in the U.S. unless it was drive-thru, so I was somewhat surprised by the bag they gave me

This bag is super sized

It was large enough for my food and a drink carrier thing.  They also could have put in another few combos of food, but I'm not complaining.

Also, the McDonald's in the Bologna city center is pretty busy and has two floors.  They actually have an usher who finds you a seat.  I didn't know this the first time and went looking around for a table before a guy came to help me.  He also threw out my left over food for me.  Ospitalità, I say.

The main thing that struck me, however, is the augmented selection in some areas while in others its severely limited.  There is not much drink selection.  There are 4 options: Coke, Diet Coke, Fanta Aranciata (I'll cover what this is in a later post), and Water, and these are pretty much the same limited options that you'll find in a supermarket.  This Dr. Pepper drinking blogger is somewhat saddened by the situation.

Other things, however, provide a much greater range of choices.  There are various things you can get instead of fries, including a wedge of parmesan cheese (they were sold out when I went, so I guess it's popular).  Also available is gelato, which I came very, very close to getting, I assure you.  Granted, gelato in this case probably only means soft-serve, but it is probably pretty good in any case.  I mean, who doesn't like ice cream?  I'll do a post one this when I try out Burger King (the only other American fast food chain I've seen.  Where's the Sbarro's?), but there were 5 or 6 flavors, including Coffee, Caramel, and "Forest Fruit" (mixed berry I think).  So yeah, I will certainly be going to check that out.  Actually, there's no way I'm not going back now that I've realized that the sandwich I ate had bacon sauce on it.  Mi piace.