Check this! McDonald’s has done some tinkering with the Big Mac, and now offers it in a brown bun (or pain complet) as well as the usual white one, and no it’s not an April Fool!

I think this is a really interesting move by McD’s – showing that they’re not afraid to try and make existing products more healthy. Also, it’s a permanent addition and option on the menu.

Unfortunately this is exclusive to France, so I’ll have to wait until I’m over there next time to try it. I’m intrigued though!

You can read more about it on the  McDonald’s France website.

photo: brandon shigeta

Check it! McDonald’s has opened two new stores without any McDonald’s branding. They’re called Quarter Pounder, and sell only two menu choices – a Quarter Pounder with Cheese and a Quarter Pounder without, both as meals by the looks of things. The stores look really cool and even the packaging looks funky and minimalist.

Unfortunately as you can probably tell by now, these stores are in Japan. If I ever ever get to visit Japan, (and this now gives me another reason), I am looking forward to going there, even though I have never had a Quarter Pounder at McD’s. My conclusion here though is that Quarter Pounder is cool.

Update: Apparently these are just temporary stores to mark the launch of Quarter Pounders in Japan (McDonald’s there don’t sell them yet.) The lease on two McDonald’s was coming to an end, so they decided to create a bit of a buzz by using the spaces to market Quarter Pounders before their proper launch. So it looks like I’ll never get to visit one!

Via: McChronicles

I have not had a very exciting time recently, as I’ve just been finishing editing Northern Exposure. This is probably reflected in the fact that the most interesting thing I have to write about is a new burger at McDonald’s.

It’s called the Oriental BBQ burger but mine wasn’t very oriental. Apparently I got the last one before they ran out of the Oriental BBQ sauce, and I think I must have had one drop on it because it didn’t taste oriental at all. So I was a bit disappointed.

In an aside, did you know my most popular picture on Flickr is this one? 11,902 views and favourited 10 times! Burger time!

Check it! It’s like the tiniest McDonald’s in the world! Now, I didn’t take this photo myself. My Mum and Dad are in Singapore at the moment, and my Dad spotted it. Apparently it opens at 4am for breakfast. But does it do hot breakfast? If so where do they cook everything? So many questions! I tried to find out more from the McDonald’s Singapore website but it was so s-l-o-w I couldn’t be bothered.

I was a bit skint when I was in London, and was still keen to try and win something on McDonald’s Monopoly apart from a McMuffin, so it was McD’s for lunch.

My disappointment that Monopoly has finished was soon replaced by excitement that they have a new burger (two if you include a version with bacon) and also chunky chips! (All for a limited time).

Obviously I had to try the burger. It is served on a ciabatta roll, and comes with cheese, grilled onions, batavia lettuce, tomato relish and garlic mayonnaise. It is also absolutely delicious. Honestly. You really need to try one.

The chunky chips were pretty good as well, but I found them to be very filling.

I want to have this burger again soon, but as it contains 32 grammes of fat, it is a once a month treat rather than a regular thing!

Yum! I’m a fan of breakfast in fast food places, and I think there’s something sadly lacking from McDonald’s breakfast menu here… McGriddles (that’s one of them above), which are available in McDonald’s in the US. Basically it’s the same as a Sausage or Bacon and Egg McMuffin, but there’s some maple syrup baked in to the muffin, making it slightly sweet and very stodgy.

It sounds disgusting, but it’s not – it’s a good filling breakfast! Unfortunately it’s probably not very good for you

This seems to be changing though, as the picture above shows. I only go to McD’s about once every two months now, but if it looked like the picture above, I reckon I might be tempted in more often. There’s an interesting article about McDonald’s new design stratgey over at Business Week.