It's holiday travel season! Maybe you’re lucky enough to be headed overseas, and maybe you’ve mapped out where you’ll eat while you’re away. For some people, an international trip is a chance to go truly local - to try the fried grasshoppers in Oaxaca, Mexico, or the maggot cheese in Sardinia, Italy.
For others, the Burger King in the airport or across from the hotel is a selling point. Here are the best of both worlds: Some re-envisioned American fast food and soft drink staples from around the globe.
McDonald’s Seasonal Burgers
Generally the word "seasonal" conjures up images of summer produce at farm-to-table restaurants, not a wintertime burger at a McDonald’s in Berlin, Germany.
For six weeks during the cold weather months, German McDonald’s restaurants offer a specialty, the Big Rösti. It’s a beef patty topped with a crispy, pan-fried potato pancake (which looks suspiciously like the hash brown from the breakfast menu), bacon and cheese on an onion-studded bun.
Super Diet Sodas
In America, diet soda means zero-calorie beverages: You shouldn’t gain weight when you drink them. In Japan, diet soda now means you can possibly lose weight because you’re drinking them.
A few weeks ago, Pepsi unveiled a “fat-blocking soda,” Pepsi Special. The key ingredient is “indigestible dextrin”– also known as dietary fiber - which, they claim, can cut down on the amount of fat that the body is able to absorb. As of right now, you have to get on a plane to Japan to find the soda and start losing weight.
Dunkin’ Donuts Seaweed Donuts
To me, this sounds like a kid’s worst nightmare - or something from "American Horror Story." Among the flavors at Dunkin’ Donuts in Asia you can find shredded pork and dried seaweed donuts. As odd as it sounds, it’s probably pretty tasty. Coincidentally or not, last spring basketball superstar LeBron James signed on to be DD’s new spokesperson in Asia.
Pizza Hut’s Kebab Pies
Pizza is currently one of the trendiest foods in America. But even with wacky versions like the chicken bacon ranch pie, no one seems to have stepped it up quite like Pizza Hut in India. That’s where you can find the new Crown Pizza, a.k.a. the King of Pizzas.
The pie is ringed with a crust studded with deep-fried chicken or vegetable kebabs (they look like chicken nuggets to me) and drizzled with creamy pepper sauce. The snazzy sounding Chicken Majestic Crown Pizza boasts hot-and-spicy chicken; if you go for the Chicken Splendor option, you get chicken tikka on top of your pizza instead
