When I was in Hong Kong recently (okay it was a few months ago, maybe last summer?), I noticed a plethora of American fast food establishments around. Sadly these fast food joints were as prevalent as the regular old Hong Kong street food carts (check out the last post about Hong Kong’s Street Food extravaganza here). KFC, Pizza Hut (which has established itself as a fancy sit down restaurant in Hong Kong), and of course the mighty Golden Arches, McDonald’s, pretty much can be found everywhere you look.
McDonald’s is very popular in Hong Kong and is one of the few places that are open really late in the city near our hotel in Tsim Tsa Tsui, so on occasion we would frequent this place, like we do here in the States, out of convenience and familiarity.
Like in the US, the staples of McDonald’s are present here on the menus in Hong Kong, the Big Mac, Double Cheeseburger, Quarterpounder etc. But unlike any McDonald’s in the States, the ones here in Hong Kong serve food items such as “taro pie” in addition to “apple pie”, “seaweed flavored” french fries, and chicken wings, cause why the hell not?
The seasoned french fries were a big thing going on that summer, ads appeared on all the TV channels and in the city corners for these Hong Kong “Shake Shake Fries” from McDonald’s. Basically you take these little seasoning packets like “seaweed” or “spicy” and you add it to the fries inside the paper bag and shake shake shake it all around to get the seasoning on the fries and then, enjoy. I remember the flavors being heavy on the msg but other than that they were pretty good! Maybe they’ll bring this to the US one day. I hear it is also only a seasonal offering at the McDonalds in Hong Kong.
The taro pie was pretty good, the same crusty pastry shell used for apple pies but filled with the sweet purple starchy gooey taro cubes instead of apples. The chicken wings were my favorite though, fried to a crisp and a wonderful bite sized snack.
before you start eating shake shake fries, here is a instructional video with a “cool” dance teaching you how to properly shake it.
Seaweed flavoring for the Shake Shake fries
Keep it cool
more from Hong Kong soon….
and on to the next adventure…
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