Poutine at a Canadian McDonalds in Victoria, BC

I was in Victoria, British Columbia while on a cruise ship stop. While sightseeing, we spotted a McDonalds with a maple leaf on the sign. Out of curiosity, we went inside to see if Canadian McDonalds have any interesting menu differences compared to the US for horrible food.

Canadian McDonalds does have a menu difference. They serve Poutine. I had to try some going in with the lowest expectations. My low expectations were met with some of the worst poutine I've ever sampled. It was so bad half the box ended up getting thrown out. The fries tasted stale. The gravy didn't have much of a flavor. The worst offender was the cheese. I'm pretty sure these weren't cheese curds and were instead chunks of mozzarella. McDonalds, you make Canadian food look bad...

Devil McDonald's in Orlando, FL

Late one night, I found myself in the Sand Turkey District of Orlando. I was sort of hungry, and the person I was with suggested Mcdonald's. As we pulled up, I recognized the location as the devil Mcdonald's pointed out on the Tasty Chomps blog. I'm fascinated by pareidolia, or the tendency of the human brain to see faces in inanimate objects, so I enjoyed the outside of this McDonald's building. Looking at the front of the building, I see eyes, a big grin, and red glowing devil horns. Perfect for Halloween, but could it be foreshadowing at how the food might taste?

This is a Bistro Gourmet McDonald's, meaning they serve much better tasting food than your average McDonald's. The only problem with the Bistro Gourmet McDonald's is that the Bistro Gourmet part of the kitchen is almost always closed whenever I'm at one of these locations. That leaves your standard McDonald's menu as the only choice.

Person I was with ordered some fries. I had a few, tasted okay, like fast food French fries should.

I decided to try a BBQ Grilled Chicken Snack Wrap. It consisted of chicken, lettuce, cheese, and barbecue sauce wrapped in a tortilla. They were really heavy with the sauce, leaving a puddle of the spicy sauce in the lower half of the wrap. The grilled chicken had a strange consistency, reminded me of boiled chicken from Chinese restaurants. It definitely didn't seem grilled to me. Overall, the wrap wasn't horrible. It was far better than some of the other sandwiches I've eaten from McDonald's. I would have preferred something off of the Bistro Gourmet menu though...

Space McDonald's

On August 28, 2009, the Space Shuttle Discovery was making it's third attempt to launch on mission STS-128. Although I can see the shuttle just fine from where I live, I decided to go out to Titusville, FL to get a closer look. I arrived about an hour before the launch and some sort of dessert seemed appropriate to pass the time.

I initially thought of going to this Ice Cream Truck. I've noticed that most ice cream trucks in Florida are pretty sad. They normally involve a guy in a van selling prepackaged ice cream bars out of a freezer. These are the same ice cream bars that you can buy a box of in the supermarket, probably for about the same price as one pop. Up north, they have soft serve ice cream trucks like Mr. Softee where they do more than pull a frost covered ice pop out of the freezer with a big markup. When I saw this particular ice cream truck parked on the side of the road in Titusville, I got excited. It looked like it was a soft serve truck. Unfortunately, when I walked over, it seemed the truck and another car got in a fender bender and ice cream was no longer being sold.


The next dessert choice within walking distance was this Mcdonald's with appropriately decorated windows. I had a strawberry milkshake, which was okay for what it was and where it was from. It really couldn't compare to milkshakes from a soft serve ice cream truck though!





At 11:59 pm, the Discovery finally launched. I love night launches, especially when you can hear the roar of the engines! It's a shame the shuttle program is coming to an end pretty soon. I really hope NASA gets it's act together and goes through with completing the Orion Project, but somehow I have my doubts that we will see it happen any time soon.

Chipotle Vegetarian Burrito

I had a vegetarian burrito from the Chipotle in Lake Mary, FL. Here are two fun Chipotle facts that most people don't realize.
1- They don't use real cheese. They instead use a soy-based tofu cheese so it's vegan friendly.
2- It started out as an independent restaurant. Then McDonalds bought Chipotle's and expanded it all over the country, and has since sold the company.

McDonald's & Maurice's

While traveling south to Florida, a stop was made in Franklin, VA. The hotel didn't serve any sort of icky continental breakfast or anything, so the breakfast choice was narrowed down to the McDonalds across the street.

I ordered a egg and cheese biscuit combo, so it came with orange juice and hash browns. The whole experience in the fast food restaurant took about fifteen minutes, and probably would have taken longer if the manager didn't come in and all of the employees suddenly started scrambling to make the food faster. Once the food was ready, I took it and ate in the car.


I can't remember the last time that I ate in a standard McDonalds, but I was reminded why I don't eat the food off of the normal McDonalds menu. As I was eating the breakfast it tasted fine. For hours afterwards though, something in the food irritated the back of my throat. Drinking lots of water didn't really help, and it wasn't until a sneeze where a bit of mucus came up that the sore throat went away. This happens to me with breakfast from Burger King as well. Yummy...


On to better food, later in the day I ate at Maurice's Barbecue in Santee, South Carolina. Right off of I-95, this little fast food barbecue restaurant has some good food. You are greeted by this giant pork sandwich in the sky...




I ate a Jr. Pig Dinner, which consisted of pulled pork in a mustard barbecue sauce, fries, a roll, cole-slaw, hush puppies, and something called Carolina hash which was served over rice. The pork was very tasty, and I made my own pulled pork sandwich with the meat and the roll. I'm not exactly sure what was in the Carolina hash, but that was also very tasty. It was a whole lot to eat too.

And here is a portrait of Maurice hanging up in the restaurant. You know you are in the south when a restaurant owner is pictured in front of a Confederate flag...



With all of the meat and fried food that I ate today, I'm really in the mood to go eat vegan food again...