From the official McDonald's Korea site.
After a limited release in 2008, the Quarter Pounder with Cheese and the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese debuted in South Korea on November 1st and, as the JoongAng Daily writes, McDonald's is giving away 500 free iPhones to customers who order it. Like the Big Mac, Chicken McNuggets, and the Egg McMuffin, the Quarter Pounder is a signature menu item at McDonald's, which likely explains its addition, though South Korea of course doesn't use "pounds"---the name in Korean is simply "quarter pounder cheese" written in the Korean alphabet, 쿼터파운더치즈---and customers won't associate the name with the heft as American consumers once did. The sandwiches will serve as additional large beef sandwiches on the menu, with the Double Quarter Pounder---at 226 grams of beef---surpassing the Double Bulgogi Burger, the Bacon Tomato Deluxe, and the Big Mac in size.
From 아시아경제.
23 comments:
Looks like a post-op Kang Hye-jung there on the left.
I haven't stepped inside a McDonalds since forever... but wouldn't a better name for the "Double Quarter Pounder" be "Half Pounder?" Is that what they call it in North America as well: "Double Quarter Pounder?"
Still, if they were giving away a free phone with the burger, that MIGHT actually get me to step inside one. MAYBE. Only if it was a guaranteed thing. Like, first come, first served kinda thing. Get my free phone, throw out the food.
I haven't been in a Korean MacDonald's in at least 5 years but didn't they already have 1/4 pounders?
I would have preferred Egg and Sausage McMuffins. :)
And yes, I checked, they call it a Double Quarter Pounder, at least in Canada.
Took McDonald's Korea a while to introduce breakfast . . . the few McDonald's in Jeollanam-do were always dead in the am, so I don't think it's caught on there, yet. Not sure how it is in Seoul. But, anyway, I'm pretty sure they already have Sausage Egg McMuffins, don't they?
I like the K-McDs Shanghai Spice Chicken. Other than that, I didn't go there very much b/c getting a sandwich without cheese was always too much trouble. The *gasp* Lotteria Hanwoo Bulgogi Burger was my "need some fattening Western food after a bad day and I'm not going all the way downtown to McDonald's" go-to item.
But Burger King trumps them all.
Sweet - now, for the McD's to catch up to 2010's menu in every other way...
Though I'm not crazy about K-McDs food (I'd rather eat kimbap nara, or Burger King), there's a lot K-McDs does very well. It sucks, however, that "fast" food in Korea often isn't very fast . . . I'd be curious to see what an American manager'd have to say about their productivity statistics.
McDonald's restaurants in Seoul do serve the full McMorning Menu, according to the signs posted out front.
I'm curious to know if they'll be allowed to continue calling this the quarter-pounder and remain in compliance with the law passed a couple years back that bans the use of non-metric weights and measures.
The one McDonalds in Jinju does the breakfast menu and it seems pretty successful.
What I like about the McDonalds here is that things are usually made to order so they are fresher, no chance of getting an hour old sandwich. McDonalds sandwiches take on a funky taste after a certain period of time.
If I'm really in the need for a burger though I just head to Kraze Burger, but it's a bit expensive. Mom's touch is also starting to fill a void. Mom's touch is great because they serve fried chicken sandwiches with draft beer, and it usually comes to under 10,000 won. It's a much more economical way to get greased and drunk. I guess you could get McDonald's take out and head to a Family mart for a plastic jug of hite but that takes too much work. I like draft beer and cajun fries, so if one isn't enough you can always order more.
If McDonalds had beer, that'd be great.
Remember in the movie "Pulp Fiction" where John Travolta's character says that since France is on the metric system (like Korea), McDonald's calls the Quarter Pounder with Cheese the "Royale with Cheese"? Mickey D's should do the same in Korea!
Maybe it's another case of blindly following anything American ('American School' for a hagwon name doesn't inspire confidence). We have it in Australia too even though we started using the metric system in 1966. It's a brand name now I guess.
Or it could simply be a reference to the chest pounding you'll need after your heart attack.
You need to do some traveling, Brian. Burger King doesn't come close to either California's "In-N-Out Burger" chain or the South's "Whataburger." You can't do this at Burger King. Besides, having taquitos on their breakfast menu, you can order a Whataburger 24 hours a day which is great if you don't like the limited breakfast menus of other chains that force their crappy breakfasts on you at 10:30am when you are really only interested in a burger.
John, I was just talking about fast food options in southwestern Korea. I'd rank:
4. McDonald's
3. Lotteria
2. Kraze Burger
1. Burger King
I'm not really an authority on fast food in the US . . . never even been to Sonic or Red Robin, let alone all the chains outside of PA.
I know, Brian. I was just giving you grief over not upgrading from lowly Burger King to the likes of Sonic. It should be illegal not having tater tots on a burger chain menu.
Yeah so, I went to McDonald's and bought the burger (which doesn't taste that great IMO) literally 5 minutes after reading your post. They gave me a coupon with a number I had to call to see if i won. Nope, no such luck. Tear Tear
Whataburger. For the love of all that is good and holy. When I'm back home driving around, I take a chance to grab Whataburger whenever I see one.
Though, I don't know if you can call it a "Southern" chain. Seen them in Florida, and out Arizona. Looking at the map, I guess "southern" kind of fits, though.
http://www.whataburger.com/one_near_you.php
Finally! It just about broke my heart the very first time I trekked to a Korean McDonalds and found that I couldn't have my favourite greasy snack.
one of the nice things about living in texas, sonic and whataburger its making me hungry just thinking about getting some when i get home next month. sonic tots and whataburger's iced tea yum yum!!!
now excuse me while i run over to mcdeath for my royale with cheese i may buy a bunch just to get the iphone
McD's Korea needs to get with the American menu. They actually have nutritious salads, including a pretty-good the side salad for only a buck.
Brian wrote:
It sucks, however, that "fast" food in Korea often isn't very fast . . .
I don't know how fast they are in Pennsylvania, but in Hawaii the McDonald's staff is notoriously slow.
Pure shite! If you want to know how truly disgusting a Macs is get one delivered. Once it's cooled, whereby many of the components loose their ability to dupe our taste buds, the thing becomes a disgusting wadge of nothingness and that pale and bloodless pattie, dry and bland.
Yea, I'll admit when fresh they can be highly satisfying but that's what they've been designed to do, scientifically.
I worked in Mac's for a year and nothing is as it seems. The cheese is chesse solely by association with other components and by its designed 'mouth-feel' and if you put a slice on toast and try to toast it the thing is just salty. Looks like cheese, feels like cheese, but there's no cheese in it. The bread roll can be squished into a ball the size of a pea - its all air. And one patty can contain mechanically rescued slurry from up to a thousand different cows. If you were served five or six of those compressed slurry slices, on their own you'd probably leave them but hidden in that bap and squirted and camouflaged with gunk, and it's amazing what people will eat.
Immmmmmm barrrrrffing it!
It's two quarter-pound patties, not a single 1/2 pound patty. Therefore a double quarter pounder, not a half pounder.
That's a good point, Hot Stuff, I hadn't thought of that.
But I wonder if calling it il-il-yuk,(no hangeul on this computer) or something Korean customers could immediately get---like the size of the DQTR---would be more useful than writing out the English name in Hangeul, a name refering to a unit of measure that has no meaning to most Koreans.
And, on a different topic, there are a few things McDonald's does well in Korea, something I may save-slash-milk for another post. But I will say that it wasn't until I moved to Seoul in January that I went to a McDonald's (or Lotteria) in Korea where I didn't have to wait five minutes for either my food or my fries to be cooked to order. It makes sense to cook meat and fries to order during off-peak times, like 5 am or 9:30 pm, but not for dinner.
Since we're here, I'll link back to a post nearly two years old, "McRefugees in Korea", pretty much the last time McDonald's was in the news there. There are excerpts from the book Golden Arches East, which talks about the introduction of McDonald's to East Asia, including South Korea, in the 1990s, and the ways it had to struggle and adapt to find more mainstream acceptance. The Korean part is only a chapter, but it's a useful one when looking at Korea at the time and at the growth of western food there.
I like it, but when I told the K-McD gals when they asked if I knew what a QP was in the US, I told them it came out in the early 70s, and of course, they looked at me like I had slapped their moms.
still its good when they dont burn the meat...
Post a Comment