I had been hearing about the pleasantries of Mr. McDonald's Restaurant for quite some time, and after seeing a few television commercials during this year's Super Bowl, I thought I would give it a shot.
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| McDonald's Restaurant at 6125 Grand Avenue in Des Moines, Iowa |
After all, if this famed eatery has truly served 75 Billion burgers as it claims it has, then it can only be assumed that the meals are extravagantly prepared and hold a magnificent quality, am I right?
My dining partner and I made our way in late morning, with the idea that we could get a jump on the lunchtime rush. This particular McDonald's Restaurant location sits at 6125 Grand Avenue in that unique little pocket of the city that is too far west to be called Des Moines, and too far east to be cited as a West Des Moines property.
Maybe that's why they call it the Raccoon Valley? I wondered as we chose an eloquent table in the window section of the restaurant.
Now I say "eloquent" because the table we chose was the only one in the area that had obviously been tended too. The other tabletops had stains of ketchup alongside smears of grease and/or perhaps an errant french fry or wadded napkin that had been left behind from former diners. Being the master englut that I am, I understand the inclination of the menial staff that a general eatery employs, also realizing that many are underpaid and improperly trained. But surely a restaurant that has served 75 Billion sandwiches could afford to pay it's staff very well, so my dining partner and I were a bit taken aback at the level to which this detail was ignored.
Regardless, we chose an uncovered booth in the window section of the restaurant and waited for our server to make up for the lack of cleanliness with a friendly welcome.
Eight minutes later, we sat, still waiting, even as tables around us were eventually cleaned. The slow moving person never once spoke to us, or even really made eye contact and eventually at the eight minute mark, I asked the gentle older woman if she could summon a waiter for us. She gave us a look of bewilderment.
"You have to order up there at the register," she said, pointing to the production counter.
I had never heard of such a shtick, but being the modern age that it is, where unconventionality seems to be the norm, my dining partner and I sheepishly made our way to the counter. I marveled at the crowd in front of us - obviously regulars, who understood the nuances and were hip to the ways of the famed McDonald's restaurant. It was then that I saw the menu, above and behind the heads of the cashiers. I marveled at the prices, certainly low for such famous quality food and wondered aloud with my dining partner about the names of the food items.
Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, McRib, Filet o' Fish, McDouble, Chicken McNuggets...
The names of the products didn't come with descriptions, and I hastened at the thought of receiving something with which I wasn't familiar. I had heard of the Big Mac, having seen it's lavish photo pasted on the sides of city buses, and I decided that when it became my turn to tell the
We ordered our sandwiches and fries in a "combo" which essentially meant that like telephone and cable products, if we ordered three items together, we received a slight discount. We were given our food on a tray, and were pointed to the soft drink station where we were told that we could pour our own drinks.
What a strange concept, I thought. Pouring our own drinks.
It felt hip and exciting to finally excel past the apprenticeship level of our new dining experience, and by the time we found the lids to the cups along with straws (in individual wrappers) we proudly made our way back to the window area where our chosen table sat waiting for us.
Another interesting quality(?) of our dining experience was the fact that each of our sandwiches had been wrapped in a small cardboard box - something neither one of us had seen in all our years of dining. On one hand we enjoyed the freshness that this unique mode of packaging ensured, but on the other hand I always enjoyed watching the food come to the table in it's beautiful and spectacular splendor. Remembering the conventionality of the times, we opened our small boxes and proceeded to gormandize our meals.
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| Our sandwiches had been wrapped in a small cardboard box |
My sandwich was extremely soft, served on a three layered kaiser style bun that was peppered with sesame seeds. It was warm to the touch and literally melted in my mouth at every bite. It was coated with not the traditional condiments one would expect to get on a gourmet burger, but with a sauce that seemed reminiscent of a non-thickened Thousand Island salad dressing. It was garnished with lettuce and pickles, and small wonderful tidbits of onion.
My dining partner also exclaimed at how soft her sandwich was, but expressed minor disappointment at how small it seemed to be compared to the photo on the menu board. She said that it was delicious and moist, slathered in a flavor mostly boosted from a generous shot of tangy tartar sauce. It must have seemed small to her, as she devoured it in no more than four bites, the final one dropping a stained reminder of it's greatness on her sweater just below her neckline.
Unfortunately the fries were also soft, an attribute not typically associated with high quality julienned fried potatoes and while warm, they were limp to the touch, seemingly high in moisture. Our soft drinks were delicious, high in sugar and wet to the taste. They seemed to be the perfect compliment to the food that each of us consumed, and I would be amiss to not mention that each of us enjoyed a refill.
Overall our experience was good, despite our initial ignorance upon entering this heavily lauded restaurant. Could we say that we were loving it? as the commercial touts...? Maybe, if our french fries had been a bit crisper. But at the end of the meal we both agreed that it was an enjoyable experience, and that the sandwiches were delicious. I made a mental note to put Thousand Island salad dressing on every burger I ordered from here on out.
Like our predecessors, we left the table with a smear or two of grease on it's top, as well as the wadded napkin that my partner used to wipe the tartar sauce off of her sweater.
For the price and the quality of food, along with the DIY facilitation that this eatery seems to promote, out of five, I would give McDonald's Restaurant on Grand three stars. Another half-star would be offered had the eatery met our cleanliness expectations upon entering.
Update: Upon leaving the restaurant's parking lot, we discovered that if one chose to do so, he/she could drive up, order food through a speaker and pick it up at a window all while never leaving the car. Genius!
N/p: Earl Vince and the Valiants: "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Teeth Kicked In"
"Man who invented hamburgers was smart. Man who invented cheeseburgers was genius." - Mathew McConaughey
Pope Pios II wrote an erotic novel called The Tale of Two Lovers.
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