Fast food

Before we get to the meat (no pun intended. Yeah, right...) of this post, I'd just like to thank Blog Interview, to whom I have recentely submitted an interview (a sensible redundancy, it seems) for awarding me yet another follower. As they have asked me nicely to mention them, don't forget to visit Blog Interview as soon as you're done here. They would have liked a badge on my sidebar, but they have failed to provide me with one.

Onwards, then. When Nigella Lawson speaks of fast food, she usually means lemon and egg spaghetti, which sounds absolutely delicious and she makes it look so easy to prepare. Now, my standards are quite a bit lower, so when I speak of fast food, I mean McDonald's and their ilk.

Today I would like to take the time to tell you about a little treat I discovered recentely. Credit should go to Cracked.com, probably the only good thing to come out of America aside from Scarlett Johansson (1). This particular article mentions something called "the McGangBang". You should read it for what it is, and, if not, for some backgroung into this entry, but here's the highlights: The McGangBang is the unofficial name for a McDonald's sandwich composed of a McChicken inside a McDouble, both off the dollar menu. With the name being less than family friendly, not only is this combination not on the menu but also most employees won't recognise it, although some will have heard of it and will prepare it for you.

And now, for a hop over the pond.

So here I was, a few days ago, my mind adamantly set on having one of those, when a few differences would have thrown some flies in the ointment. So, to address them:

      - There is no dollar menu, which should hardly come out as a surprise, seeing as we don't use dollars at all.

      - The names are a bit different, which is to be expected. Naturally, ordering a McGangBang in a non-English speaking country will get you either slightly more or slightly less confused and judgemental looks than ordering a McGangBang on a native English speaking country depending on whether yhe cashier knows what a gang bang is. So ordering it by name is off the table (or is it off the counter?).

      - Meat is a bit more expensive here. It's been said that, pound for pound (mass measuring pounds, not sterling pounds), McDonald's hamburgers are more expensive than American new cars. It doesn't help that American cars are cheap buckets of bolts (2). Let it just be said that even an Euro (that's as much as 1.2889 American dollars) won't get you a McDouble here. It will get you a McSingle, which, obviously, isn't called a McSingle and will get you nowhere near a McChicken.

So I got around those issues easily. It didn't cost me $2.5778, however. In fact, it cost me over €7.00, but, then again, I went for fries, a beverage and, to make matters worse, a supersize. Oh, and fries dip, which I got under the guise of "mayo"... which it isn't.

But I thik it was worth it. Eating a sandwich that tall is a task more suitable for a python (not Monty Python, the sort of python that can dislocate it's jaw at will to swallow large prey whole), but, with a bit of effort, it's manageable. combining the two sandwiches at home was simpler than I expected, but I kept all the buns, which might have helped. I now believe removing at least one of them would have been best. All the more reason to have another sometime soon.

The chaser: having a chaser after this monstrosity of a meal might sound mad (right up my alley, then), but anything worth foing is woeth overdoing, so I chased it with a screening of Iron Man 2 in great company for some balance, because I'm rather sure among the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle and Gwyneth Paltrow there are very few McGangBangs to be known of.

Pax vobiscum atque vale.

ArabianShark would like to remind his most recent follower that the McGangBang contains no mango, but it still might not do wonders for her complexion. Or her waistline. Still, only one can't hurt...

(1) Shark Nibbles and their associates recognise the existence of other good things and stemming from across the pond. They're just not as frequent as the other stuff.

(2) Shark Nibbles and their associates recognise that the new Ford GT-40 is a superly constructed piece of machinery and not quite as cheap as it might be made to seem. Mind you, not only is it based on a British car, but also it includes a fair share of other European bits.