Fast food chains other countries love, but which haven't reached Britain (yet)
Spaghetti with ‘red’ sauce? Bacon and egg pancakes? Corned beef with garlic, rice and egg?
These unappetising sounding dishes may read like they’ve been cut out from a yellowing Seventies recipe book. But these are three of the dishes on the menu at the biggest fast food chain in the Philippines, which opened its first London branch in Kensington on Friday.
Jollibee has roughly 600 branches in its home country and, love it or hate it, their menu is for millions of Filipinos just as much a part of contemporary cuisine as a bowl of homemade chicken adobo or a bottle of Red Horse beer.
But should you even consider visiting one if you happen to find yourself in Manilla?
Ostensibly, it may seem like absolute anathema to an authentic travel experience. But if you want to sample what local people are choosing to eat, then some (but by no means all) fast food chains can tell you plenty about the everyday culinary tastes of the country you’re visiting,
Here are some of world’s biggest convenience kings, beyond Colonel Sanders and the Golden Arches, which you’ve probably never heard of.
Matsuya, Japan
Consisting of a bundle of seasoned, shredded beef, laced with onions and piled high on top of a base of rice, a bowl of gyu-don is the hurried lunch choice for millions of Japanese office workers. A few chains including Yoshinoya and Sukiya sweat it out with each other for the title of best gyu-don purveyor, but Matsuya wins extra points for giving away a free cup of miso soup while you wait for your main dish.
It’s dirt cheap too. Even in notoriously pricey Tokyo, a full size bowl of gyu-don, which should be big enough to sate even the most ravenous of appetites, won’t cost more than ￡4.50.
Bob’s, Brazil
The Bob in question is Bob Falkenburg, a half American, half Brazilian tennis player who won the men's singles at Wimbledon back in 1948.
Setting up a fast food restaurant in Copacabana just four years after his sporting triumph, Bob had no interest in creating mass versions of local classics such as feijoada or coxhinas. Instead, he brought burgers, hot dogs and shakes to Brazil for the first time.
Now with over 1,000 stores across the nation, the only real concession to Brazilian foodie culture is the sale of a fizzy drink that contains guarana, a plant found in the Amazon basin. The extract of the plant, mixed with soda, is wildly popular. Though even on this front Bob’s misses out on authenticity. Guarana Antarctica is, hands down, the iconic Brazilian brand. Bob’s serves up a guarana drink called Kuat, made by that legendary Brazilian brewer, er, Coca-Cola.
Samtaesong, North Korea
Pyongyang’s first fast food chain encountered a slight stumbling block upon opening in 2009. Samtaesong, which translates as Three Big Stars, had to find a way not to fall foul of the North Korean regime which places a ban on many Western nouns, including ‘burger’.
So the menu was, and continues to be, dominated by variations on ‘minced beef with bread’ instead. Set up by Singaporeans Quek Chek Lan and Timothy Tan, both long time investors in the North Korean steel and mineral trades, the name is intended to refer to late leader Kim Jong-il, his father Kim Il-sung, and his mother Kim Jong-suk.
Whether the venture really supplies fast food to the people is debatable though. The restaurants only accept Euros and US dollars and the price of a ‘minced beef with bread’, at roughly ￡1.50, would be a stretch for most families in a state where the average monthly wage is less than ￡100 per person.
Teremok, Russia
With blinis, kasha and borscht on the menu, you can’t accuse Teremok, with over 300 outlets across Russia, from at least attempting to deliver something distinctly native on its menus.
Set up in 1998 by Mikhail Goncharov, a former window washer from Almaty who claims the dishes are inspired by a pre-revolutionary cookbook called ‘A Gift To Young Housewives’, this is almost certainly the only fast food chain on the planet to offer caviar on the menu.
OK, so it’s not Beluga but the Red Star blini does indeed contain salmon roe, smothered in pastry which can be served alongside a cup of kvass, a malty Russian beverage made from rye bread which tastes a little bit like non-alcoholic Guinness.
Plans to expand to the West however, haven’t quite gone to plan so far. Teremok’s two New York branches both closed in June this year with Goncharov alleging "open animosity" towards the restaurant by city health inspectors.
Max, Sweden
There’s nothing particularly Swedish about a junk food binge at Max. With over 100 stores across Sweden, burgers, fries and shakes dominate proceedings here.
Their claims for eco credibility are a lot more unusual, however. Launching this year, the chain claims to have created the world’s first ‘climate positive menu’ by analysing everything from the soil where potatoes are grown to the petrol emissions of customers' cars. Max claims that they offset 100 per cent of greenhouse gases they emit by recycling cooking oil, using wind power and putting a larger range of vegetarian and vegan burgers on the menu.
Whether this is merely fast food greenwash or a genuine attempt at sustainability, you have to admire the chutzpah of Chief Sustainability Officer Par Larshans who went as far as to say "we want people to eat less meat" in a 2009 interview. Larshans doesn’t work for the company anymore but the eco-crusade continues: the current Max range includes a vegan BBQ sandwich and vegan milkshakes made with coconut milk.