Makkudonardo - Feb. 8 2007

I promised I wouldn’t eat American food in Japan, but today I gave up, not because I craved fat fast food, but because of my curiosity to taste the local Japanese McDonalds flavors. I tried the shrimp filet burger and it was so so… I would even think that the classic menu (BigMac ect) is better. Besides the food, another reason I find it is interesting to go in a McDonalds in Japan is that it works very differently than from the ones in US and Canada. Some of my American friends decided not to go to Mcdonalds because they could not understand the system. It is very confusing the first time. People wait in line and call out their order to someone in the kitchen, and at that point there are “chutes” where food is sometimes placed. I would suppose that sometimes you can get your order right there, if it is there and ready. If your order is not available in the chute, they hand you a card that you give at the cash and when you get there you tell them if you want it in a trio (here called setto). Once you pay they exchange the card you receive at the “chutes” for a number and when your order is ready they call your number so you can pick up your food bag. Something that I also find surprising, is that for a country that is very environmentally concerned (compared to most), whenever you go to a fast food restaurant or coffee shop, they seldom ask you if it is for take out or not. Whether it is or not, most of the time they prepare everything for you to take out. For example, Starbucks usually serve in real cups when you don’t take out, but here it is always served in plastic cups. The McDonalds is not exception: the order is always placed in a paper bag. So I find that this definitely creates excess waste. For the packaging and the way the McDonalds are run here, I don’t know if it’s culture related or due to the sheer number of customers they can have in one time. Maybe the way things are set up here, it makes things more simple and speeds up the process so they can serve more people in a specific span of time.