If you’ve seen the Jack In The Box commercials promoting the imaginary Jumbaco, then you probably already figured that someone would end up trying the item out, even if it isn’t actually on the menu. Sure enough, Serious Eats has gone ahead and tried it so the rest of us wouldn’t have to.

Surprisingly, the review is pretty positive other than the fact that it is so messy:

Cheeseburgers and tacos share a lot of the same core ingredients, so the flavors blended together well (with the exception of the pickle)…The shell added some texture, and the two extra slices of cheese and taco “meat” brought a touch of simulated Mexican flavor to the burger, which is pretty mono-texture and bland on its own. On the downside, you need about one napkin per bite, and under no circumstances should anyone ever look at the slimy meat paste inside the tacos.

Now that you’ve seen someone else eat it, would you try the Jumbaco out?

Link

Link Via The Consumerist

Image Via scriptingnews [Flickr]

Burger King

In Canada, poutine, fries covered in cheese curds and gravy, is offered at almost every fast food restaurant, but BK offers their own varieties that fit in with the rest of their food –most notably, the Angry Poutine with fried onions and peppers on top.

In Puerto Rico, mallorcas, sweet pastry buns, are a popular breakfast treat and Burger King takes full advantage of the popularity of these buns by offering the King Mallorca, filled with ham, eggs and three different cheeses. If you want something even more filling, you might want to try their Enormous Omelet, which isn’t an omelet at all, but actually one of the restaurant’s long hamburger buns filled with a hamburger patty, two eggs, bacon and cheese. Later in the day, you can always snack on some King Wings, which are buffalo wings marinated in honey –why aren’t these sold in America yet?

In many countries, including the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Colombia and Mexico, you can enjoy the deliciously fatty Cheesy Whopper, which features a deep fried disc of cheese on top of a standard Whopper.

Personally, I want to try the Hawaiian BK Chicken available in New Zealand, which is like all the other chicken sandwiches Burger King sells, only it features bacon and pineapple. Sign me up!

KFC

The variety of KFC’s international menus is simply astounding, as the American version exclusively limits itself to fried chicken and a few sides, while the international franchises seem to have no limits on what they serve. On the more standard side, there is the Fillet Tower Burger, which is available throughout Europe and other locations, which is essentially just a chicken sandwich topped with a hashbrown. On the other end of the spectrum is the menu from Thailand, which features stir fries, a tuna and corn salad, fish fingers (like chicken fingers, but fish) and a donut filled with shrimp meat. China offers a similarly strange menu compared to the standard KFC fare, as it includes corn salad, beef wraps, red bean porridge, shrimp burgers and an egg and vegetable soup.

Some of the desserts featured in other countries sound downright delicious, particularly those available in France. Some French KFC dessert selections include a banana and passion fruit tart, panna cotta with raspberry sauce and tiramisu.

As for unique dishes, the Cali Maki Twister, available in the Philippines sounds good but weird. It is a chicken wrap with mangos, cucumber and spicy mayo. Japan’s shrimp bisque pot pie also sounds pretty tasty, although the picture looks a little strange.

Pizza Hut

Naturally, Pizza Hut’s main offering around the globe remains pizza, but what does change is their topping selection. Depending on where you go, you can top your pizza with apricot sauce, asparagus, broccoli, calamari, capers, carbonara sauce, chicken fajita meat, chicken tikka, chorizo, clams, corn, crab, cranberry sauce, cream cheese, curry sauce, eggplant, goat cheese, hot dogs, kebab meat, mashed potatoes, mayonnaise, mint, mussels, potato chips, roast beef, salsa, satay sauce, seaweed, sour cream, shrimp, spicy Thai sauce, sweet corn, tandoori spices, teriyaki chicken, thousand island dressing, tuna or yogurt. And I bet some of you still think pineapple is a weird pizza topping.

As if that weren’t enough variations on your pizza, the restaurant also offers a variety of different stuffed crusts and cheesy bite fillings, including a stuffed crust with kebab meat inside and a cheesy bite crust with shrimp inside.

If you really want to see some different menu items at a Pizza Hut though, head to Hong Kong, where the menu reads more like a five-star restaurant than a crummy American pizza chain. A few highlights: escargot with mashed potatoes, lobster soup with puffed pastry, paella, squid in risotto with shrimp in a lobster sauce and crème brule. It would sound great if the sign on the restaurant didn’t still read “Pizza Hut.”

Image Via tangdersons [Flickr]

Taco Bell

Taco Bell’s international menus are perhaps the most similar to the American version, with a few exceptions. Most notably, in Spain you can order tater tot nachos with sour cream (yummy), and a Chocodilla, which is exactly what it sounds like –a chocolate quesadilla. Also, in India, many of the traditional Taco Bell items can be served with potato in place of meat.

McDonald’s

While McDonald’s is certainly the largest fast food restaurant in the world, I did neglect to include them in this list only because I already wrote about many of their international treats in this McFacts About McDonald’s article. Just in cast you’re feeling too lazy to click over though, here is a highlight:

Most Indian menus are largely different than those in America, as pig and cow products are not served outside of Southern India. The chicken and fish are also prepared in separate areas because or strict religious laws regarding the preparation of food for vegetarians. One of the area’s specialties is the Maharaja Mac, which was originally made with lamb meat but now is made with chicken. They also serve a dish called the McCurry pan, which consists of a bowl made from flakey dough filled with chicken in a tomato-curry sauce.

Naturally, there are plenty more international fast food menu options, but we’d be here for weeks if I actually described them all. If you do happen to live outside the U.S. and know of a local offering from a major chain restaurant, feel free to talk about them in the comments. Similarly, if you’ve tried any of the snacks included here, tell us what you thought about them.

Sources: BK.com, KFC.com, PizzaHut.com, Taco Bell Spain, Taco Bell India

In what is sure to be the wackiest food marketing campaign yet, the French fast food chain Quick have released their Force burgers, to promote the release of The Phantom Menace in 3d.

This bold, and absolutely disgusting looking, burger features a bun that is dyed black, ensuring that only a true Sith Lord will want to have anything to do with it!

What do you think-would you eat a burger with a black bun, or is the color enough to put you off the Vader deluxe?

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What is a entrepreneur to do after he makes a fortune from his Flip camera company? Start his own high-tech grilled cheese restaurant, of course. Or at least, that’s what Jonathan Kaplan is doing with “The Melt” restaurant  he’s  launching. The fast food eatery will offer a variety of cheese sandwiches that can be cooked up in under a minute. Plus, customers will be able to order their food over the phone or internet ahead of time.

I don’t know about you, but I’d be happy to stop by and snack on a yummy cheese sandwich if one of these popped up in my neck of the woods.

Link Via Laughing Squid

The squirrel climbed inside the can and came out with a french fry. After eating the fry, it went back in the can and came out with the remains of a fish sandwich. Local parks were crowded this afternoon as temperatures neared 70.

The story was featured on the front page of the paper, prompting debate on its newsworthiness. It may be filler for a newspaper, but it’s just right for Neatorama. Link -via Fark

(Image credit: Charles Bertram/Lexington Herald-Leader)

According to rates displayed on the restaurant’s menu, the cost of a hamburger is 228 North Korean won, or more than U.S. $2 according to the official exchange rate, putting it outside of the budget of the average citizen.

According to the Pyongyang resident, customers can pay in North Korean won, U.S. dollars, euros, or Chinese yuan.

Initially, the resident said, Samtaesung was frequented only by people who had traveled overseas or those who wanted to try the food out of curiosity, but the hamburger joint soon became very popular.

He said that many Pyongyang residents are now fond of hamburgers, though the greasier taste of the food takes some getting used to.

“The third time you eat a hamburger, you really get to appreciate it. By the time you’ve had your fifth, you’re already addicted to the taste,” he said.

The restaurant is owned by  Kim Jong Il’s sister. Link -via Breakfast Links

McDonalds

Dick and Mac McDonald made a good living selling 15 cent hamburgers in California in the 1940s. They began to branch out in the 1950s, and wanted a distinctive look for the franchised hamburger stands. A building design by architect Stanley Clark Meston incorporated several of Dick McDonald’s ideas, including the two golden arches that framed the building. Meston hated the idea, until years later when McDonalds became an American icon. The first such building went up in Phoenix, Arizona in 1953. Many buildings also used one golden arch to support the sign out front. As more McDonalds opened, the arches became recognizable to travelers all over the country. Meanwhile, the McDonald’s symbol was a chef named SpeeDee until he was officially replaced as a logo in 1962 and as mascot by Ronald McDonald in 1967. Speedee was nice, but it was the arches that everyone recognized. In 1962 Jim Schindler, the head of engineering and design for the company, sketched a logo that incorporated both the arches and the buildings’ slanted roof. The genius of the design was that the arches formed an “M”. The simplified modern double arch design was trademarked in 1968 and is still in use today.

Burger King

The Burger King chain began in 1954 in Miami as an Insta Burger King outlet. James McLamore and David R. Edgerton, Jr. changed some Insta Burger King ideas and added some of their own, such as the flame-broiling that became Burger King’s signature technique. The logo was developed in 1967 to resemble a hamburger, with bun halves surrounding the name. It was in use chain-wide by 1969. The design was updated in 1994 to add a blue swirl to the now slightly-tilted burger.

KFC

Kentucky Fried Chicken has always included its founder Colonel Harland Sanders in its logo. Sanders was a restauranteur since 1930 and franchised his chicken recipe in 1952. The original logo design was created by consultants Lippincott and Margulies in 1952 and updated in 1978. Schechter and Luth created the red logo in 1991, with the chain name shortened in order to get away from the connotations of the word “fried”. The 1997 update by Landor put a smile on the Colonel’s face. Tesser redrew the Colonel again for the 2006 logo, which put the Colonel in the kitchen, so to speak, as he is now wearing an apron. He’s also noticeably slimmer than he ever was in real life.

Taco Bell

Glen Bell opened the first Taco Bell restaurant in 1962 as a spin-off of his Taco-Tia restaurants in California. The first franchise logo resembled someone asleep wearing a sombrero. PepsiCo bought Taco Bell in 1978 and immediately replaced the logo with a simpler and less controversial bell symbol. The even simpler purple and pink logo was introduced in 1995, inspired by the color treatment of the logo as it appeared in the 1993 movie Demolition Man.

See also: The Stories Behind Ten Famous Food Logos, Evolution of Car Logos, and The Evolution of Tech Companies’ Logos.

Image via ChicagoGeek [Flickr]

How Did McDonald’s Get Taken Over By Kroc?

When I was a kid, I always thought whoever Mr. McDonald was, he must be super rich. As it turns out, Richard and Maurice McDonald, who started the original restaurant, only made $2.7 million on the deal. While that does seem like a good amount of cash, just think how much the restaurant is worth these days. To make matters worse, the brothers insisted on retaining the rights to their first restaurant in San Bernardino, so Ray opened a McDonald’s restaurant right by theirs and ran them out of business. Worse still, even though the original deal involved the brothers earning 0.5% of the chain’s annual revenues, Kroc refused to honor that part of the verbal agreement after the McDonald’s brothers refused to sell him their original restaurant and the land it stood on.

And it’s not like the McDonald’s Brothers didn’t do anything but open an everyday burger joint; if they did, Ray probably wouldn’t have been so interested in taking the whole thing over. They innovated many of the ideas that have made modern fast food restaurants so successful, including assembly line kitchens, simplistic menus and self-serve counters. The menus had nothing on them but hamburgers, cheeseburgers, French fries, potato chips, sodas, milkshakes and apple pies. Because things were so quick and efficient, prices were about half of what it cost to get a similar meal at a diner.

Image via _skynet [Flickr]

McDonald’s Across the Globe

It wasn’t too long after Kroc took over completely that the chain expanded out of America, first to Canada, then Costa Rica, Panama, Japan, Europe and Australia. These days, there’s McDonald’s located all over the world. In fact, the image above shows just how widely spread they are in the U.S.

While this world-wide globalization has led to many negative views of the corporation, some people say the company has actually helped improve the standard of service in some areas of the world. For example, when McDonald’s opened in Hong Kong in 1975, it was the first restaurant to consistently offer clean public restrooms. Soon afterwards, customers began to demand the same from other restaurants in the area.

Whether McDonald’s has a positive or negative impact in the country it enters may be a matter of opinion, but one thing the restaurant takes great pride in is their localization of the menu based on the native tastes of the area. Some interesting menu items from around the world include:

• Quebec has a regional treat known as poutine, which is a dish with French fries and cheese curds covered in gravy. McDonald’s in the area serve this as a popular side dish.
• Throughout Canada, you can order chicken fajitas from McDonald’s. This seemed weird to me that you can’t find these in South Western American states where fajitas are a popular staple of Mexican restaurants.
• In Egypt, you can find Big Macs with chicken or fish in place of beef and a “McFalafel” sandwich.

• Throughout the Middle East, McDonald’s offers a “McArabia” sandwich, which is a piece of flat bread with chicken or beef patties. They also serve a special wrap called the Paneer Salsa wrap, which takes fried, seasoned cottage cheese and wraps it in flat bread with veggies.
• Most Indian menus are largely different than those in America, as pig and cow products are not served outside of Southern India. The chicken and fish are also prepared in separate areas because or strict religious laws regarding the preparation of food for vegetarians. One of the area’s specialties is the Maharaja Mac, which was originally made with lamb meat but now is made with chicken. They also serve a dish called the McCurry pan, which consists of a bowl made from flakey dough filled with chicken in a tomato-curry sauce. Of all the international McDonald’s menu items, I think this is the one I’d want to try the most.

• Throughout Asia, you can order a side of McRice in place of fries, this is just an order of plain rice with a cool name.
• In China, you can enjoy pineapple and taro pies and a Shogun burger with teriyaki pork. You might also consider the Rice Fantastic, which is like a beef or chicken sandwich with rice patties in place of buns.
• On the Chinese island of Cheung Chau, you can also enjoy mushroom burgers in place of beef during the local Bun Festival.
• In Japan, they serve something called the Ebi Fillet-O, which is a fried shrimp sandwich. There is also a Tamago Double Mac, which has three beef paties, a poached egg, bacon and pepper sauce. You can even top off your meal with tea milkshakes.
• In Thailand they sell corn pies.
• In Finland and Norway, you can have wraps with fried fish instead of chicken or beef.
• In El Salvador, you can often have French fries made with yucca instead of potatoes.
• In Mexico, a popular breakfast option is the McMolletes, English muffins with refried beans, cheese and pico de gallo salsa.
• In New Zealand, a popular favorite is the Kiwiburger, which has beef, a poached egg, veggies, cheese and beetroot.

Images via Weather Sealed, xetark [Flickr], Allan Reyes [Flickr],

Good Ol’ American Innovation

Even in America, certain locations have their own specialty treats. The McLobster and McCrab are served seasonally throughout New England. And in the late 1990’s, Chicago locations offered a hamburger with barbecue sauce and Canadian bacon that was dubbed “the Beef Wennington” after a notable Chicago Bulls player.

Many of the company’s biggest successes were actually created locally by franchisees, including the Filet-O-Fish, the Big Mac and the Egg McMuffin.  The Filet-O-Fish was made by a Cincinnati franchise owner who wanted to offer his Catholic customers a meal they could still eat on Fridays and during lent. Ray Kroc tried a similar idea at his original restaurant, but his Hula Burger, a sandwich a pineapple slice in place of meat was a huge flop.

As for the Big Mac, it was created by an early Pittsburgh franchiser who wanted to serve something adults would enjoy when feeding their kiddos at the restaurant. The corporate heads told him he could only create new menu items creating ingredients on the existing menu, which is where the Big Mac was born.

The Egg McMuffin was in a similar position as the Big Mac inventor, only he went ahead and added a new creation to the menu without contacting headquarters. The corporation was quite upset that he started selling the McMuffin without their blessing, but they quickly changed their minds when they saw how popular it was.

Image Via VirtualErn [Flickr]

McDecor

It’s not only the menu that headquarters like to keep consistent. Locations are largely required to look similar to one another on the inside. That’s not to say there aren’t a few stand out locations though. The “Solid Gold McDonald’s” by the Rock and Roll of Fame is themed after fifties rock and roll. Victoria, British Columbia has a restaurant with a 24-carat gold chandelier and other fancy light fixtures (seen above). The McDonald’s in Stratford-upon-Avon has a very subtle design, as all buildings in the area are required to conform to the historic look of Shakespeare’s birthplace.

Whether you love McDonald’s or loathe it, there’s no arguing that the restaurant has had a huge impact on our society. Heck, Fast Food Nation has estimated that one of eight workers in America have been employed at the restaurant at some point of their lives. So you guys have any weird McDonald’s in your area? Maybe one with unique menu items or a strange design.

Image Via buschap [Flickr]

Sources Mental Floss #1, #2, Food Network Humor, Wikipedia #1, #2, #3

The thermopolium, one of the best preserved sites in Pompeii, has been closed to the public for years in order to protect it from further damage. But following months of detailed excavation and preservation work, all visitors will soon be able to go inside and get an idea of a typical ancient Roman lunch establishment.

Inside, as in many modern cafés and bars, visitors are greeted with a large, L-shaped, decorated counter where customers stood to enjoy a quick lunch. Cylindrical holes in the bar contained glass dolia, or jars, displaying food.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: flickr user lyng883, used under Creative Commons license

Wahidi said Manley’s case presented challenges because so much scar tissue had formed around the object. But he was soon able to uncover more and more of the mystery item. He called out letters — an A, a B, a U, an R.

“We figured out during the case that it was saying hamburger,” Wahidi says. “But why would something that says hamburger be in this patient’s body?”

Manley thinks he probably inhaled the plastic when he gulped a drink. He now drinks with a straw. Link -via Terra Sigillata

Looks like America is not the only country that needs to be weary of fast food. While not many outside the US can see the appeal of
a Big Mac, people in Morocco just love the McArabia.

This new sneaky tactic of adapting global fast food chains to the local palette is happening all over the
world from squid topped Dominoes pizza in Taiwan to KFC’s vegetarian Chana Snacker, a chickpea burger topped with Thousand Island sauce, in India.

Watch out global obesity! I see a plot for a Super Size Me sequel.

Walk into a McDonald’s in Morocco and you’ll find a sandwich you can’t get anywhere else in the world: a cumin-spiced flatbread creation called the McArabia Tagine.

“Honestly it tastes Moroccan,” said Noor El Ghoumari, 34, a man who had just paid 53 dirhams, or about $6.60, for a meal with one of the ground beef sandwiches in Rabat on a recent afternoon. “This is a local McDonald’s and obviously they have to adapt.”

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by CherryBomb.

Fondas are one of the most popular places to grab a meal on the go. These small kiosk-type restaurants serve their food from glass boxes heated by a light bulb. Most, if not all of the food served in fondas are fried – rice, hojaldres, pork chunks, empanadas. Fondas also serve a soup called sancocho. Sancocho is a type of chicken soup flavoured with onion and cilantro.

Link -Thanks, Karen!

In most cities it is common to see Chinese dishes such as bakpao (buns), bakmi (noodles), and bakso (meatballs). Though, pork is not used since the majority of Indonesians are Muslims. Another popular Indonesian street foods and snacks are siomay (mackerel fish meat served with peanut sauce, pempek (fish and sago), bubur ayam (chicken congee), bubur kacang hijau (green beans porridge), satay (diced or sliced chicken, goat, mutton, beef or fish), nasi and mie goreng (fried rice and fried noodle), gorengan (Indonesian assorted fritters).

Link -Thanks, Karen!

He didn’t just do this for fun, though… it’s actually an Arby’s ad.

Link via Slashfood

Previously on Neatorama: Bruce Lee Speed Painting | Phil Hansen’s Influence: a Body Paint Art

Self proclaimed mainstream-subversive art collective Superflex, decided they’d answer a question nobody had ever bothered to ask: "What does a McDonald’s restaurant look like as it slowly fills with water?"

Although we should thank them as they took the time to painstakingly recreate a McDonald’s and slowly flood it, filming it all for an exhibition at the South London Gallery.

It’s actually quite a satisfying thing to watch a generic boring fast food joint wash away, be sure to check out the video on the page.

Their latest work is a short film, “Flooded McDonald’s”, where they’ve (shockingly accurately) created a full-size replica of the inside of the ubiquitous fast food joint and then slowly filled it with water. Playing now in an exhibition at South London Gallery, the film is exactly what the title suggests and yet so much more.

Link – via reddit

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.

Link via Slashfood

Previously on Neatorama: Whopper Perfume. I have to say, their marketing gets my attention. It doesn’t send me to Burger King, but it does get my attention.

Link

That’s really all I can say about this. Color me flabbergasted.

Link via Slashfood. Photo from Adland.

Hijinks in the sink at an Anderson fast-food restaurant have cost three girls their jobs.

After closing the Anderson Kentucky Fried Chicken one recent night, the girls stripped to their underwear or changed into bathing suits and took a bath in the dishwashing sink. One of them posted the photos of the event on her public MySpace Web page.

The girls’ manager said she first learned of the photos on Tuesday and suspended the trio. On Wednesday, they were fired, said Rick Maynard, a KFC spokesman.

And the girl that posted it on her MySpace page? Here’s her reaction:

After removing the photos on her MySpace page from public access late Tuesday, the 17-year-old girl who had posted the photos made her entire page private Wednesday.

She also put up what appears to be a message for the media.

On the lone part of her page that is still public, she wrote: (sic)"Its a sad world when one has to stoop low enough to go through ones dirty laundry….one womans trash is anothers treasure! -Thanks alot for having good respect how can you live knowing the little bit of money you made was made hurting someone!"

Link | Gallery

This bit of news above puts Mike Jacobsen’s "Sizzlin’ Chicken" design (on Neatorama’s Online Store) in a completely different light:

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