Ragebait, am European, love American Food!
In Europe, the portions are European sized. In the US, they are whale-sized.
In Europe you pay 20€ for a semi decent micro Burger some Hipster slaps together, wearing black Nitrile Gloves thinking his shitty minimalistic “Burger-
ShopArtisery” will become the next big joint.I think both cultures have their issues when it comes to food. Europeans are just more pretentious about it.
I don’t know where you live, but either you live in an expensive city, only eat burgers at hipster places, or are memeing. I can still find perfectly good burgers for 12€ in my city and they fill me up. It’s not necessary to get stuffed and roll back home like a US landwhale.
Exaggeration for the sake of the Argument. The US has loads of small restaurants and fusion kitchens with local diversity (soul food). Regarding the amounts I don’t mind to have a “cheat day”. I was at SaltLick BBQ in Texas and I was sad when I was filled up because of how good it was (Brisket!! pecan Nut Pie!!! Spearribs!!!).
While I love me a cheese assortment with fine wine in Europe or similarly awesome food.
It’s just hard to compare fine dining with food you just want to inhale asap.
You compare literal apples to oranges (and are pretentious about it, sry).
Wait 'til you see the child size soda.
It’s 512 ounces, or roughly the size of a two-year old child, if the child were liquefied. It’s a real bargain at $1.59.
So anon blames an entire country for their shitty life choices?
I don’t remember the last time I ate fast food. I’m sure when I did, it was nothing like this - oh, it still sucked - but all I got was a burger and iced tea.
Though I completely agree restaurant portion sizes are insane anywhere. I akways get 2 meals out of a “serving”, often 3.
The fact that you are calling this a life choice and not a societal problem also reveals a lot about American culture. A public health policy that relies on personal responsibility has never worked and will never work.
It’s not life choices, it’s getting to know a new culture
There are other places to eat, though? Why travel and get fast food? Get something local - anything that is a nationwide chain is nonsense, the US is too big to have one cuisine.
Here, get a Cuban sandwich, black beans, and fried plantains. You will still have enough for two meals, they aren’t wrong about the portions, but at least it will be good.
Wait until anon discovers a hamburger with a glazed donut for a bun and the entire thing is deepfried.
Where do I find this?
It’s interesting reading responses on this because I’m gathering a lot of Europeans/non-americans think that burgers are always fast food?
When an american thinks of a good burger I think most of us are picturing our favorite bar and grill’s burger, not a chain fast food one.
Are burgers pretty much only at fast food chains in other countries?
Nope. Tons of places make them. I have no clue what these people are on about. Just fake outrage, I guess.
REEEEE NOT EVERYWHERE IS AMERICA REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Big food is kind of a marketing thing in America. Restaurants want to give their customers more " bang for their buck" (or at least appear to), but they don’t want to lower prices. Instead, they increase portions. This has lead to a size arms race where every restaurant wants to claim they have the biggest food in town. This is especially the case for burger joints. It doesn’t matter to the restaurant if customers eat all their food, since they pay for all of it either way. I’m guessing Americans are more culturally susceptible to this marketing tactic, since bigger-is-better is common here, and hence things have been taken further than in other countries.
This seems to be another case of someone throwing reason out the door for the sake of insulting Americans. There is no way you would be getting “shit eating grins” for ordering a kids meal. And if your large burgers are smaller than a kids meal, you either have very little size variation, or the small would be like a single bite.
Yeah, that worker is one of two in the entire restaurant. She has to take your order plus the five behind you, the drive-thru orders, make fries, bag it all up, take your monkey, clean tables, make coffee, refill the ketchup/soda/milkshake/yogurt contraptions with their various bags of sugary goo, restock counters/tables with all the varied plastic and paper geegaws, take out the trash, stock the walk-in, clean the bathrooms somebody sprayed with liquid shit, then count out and get to her other job by 3pm so she can then do it all again tomorrow. She doesn’t give a fuck what anyone orders, it’s just a blur of colors and lower back pain.
If she makes a face it’s probably the best she can do to fake a smile because you might be a secret shopper who is going to ding her points for not saying, “Welcome to McDonald’s Home of the McFlurry™ now with DoubleStuff™ Oreo™, what can I get started for you today because It Just Tastes Better!!℠” with the proper amount of obsequiousness.
There’s plenty of reasons to hate the hellscape, no reason for anon to invent some.
I REALLY wish they would have went to Five Guys.
Guy 3/5: fills 32 ounce cup with fresh hot, salt slathered fries. Drops cup in a large bag. Takes another full scoop of the fries and throws them in the bag. Easily 4-5 potatoes worth.
The cup of fries should be 1300 calories, they easily put twice as many in. That’s a daily food intake worth of calories for the side alone.
The calorie count is accurate for what they give you, not what fits in the cup. They just use a cup that’s way too small to trick you into thinking they’re giving you more than what you paid for.
I’ll have two number 9s, a number 9 large, a number 6 with extra dip, a number 7, two number 45s, one with cheese, and a large soda.
All you have to do is follow the damn train…
If you think about it, that mission was a red flag about Smoke being a fucking traitor. Fatass couldn’t shoot dudes 2 meters away
As someone who usually eats just once a day (with some supplemental shakes on work days) I love American potions. One of the good things about this country.
The lack of veg is concerning though. It sucks that the alternative to fried potatoes is usually just a handful of leaves.
Even if you do get vegetables they’re typically flavorless compared to what you can grow at home.
Yeah, because everyone has a yard and free time for gardening…
I just got a Carl’s Jr Star burger for $3 and it had tons of lettuce and tomato. Pretty fantastic and almost healthy (not really). Like a good American, I ate 2, so something like 1k calories.
A burger with high quality ingredients is not the worst thing you can eat. The worst part about it will be the saturated fat from the red meat.
American burgers are the king of all burgers, bottom line
That said 2 things I absolutely agree with:
A burger should be small enough to easily bite. It’s okay if you have to smoosh it down a bit with your hands to do so, but if I have squash it to shit or take it apart or cut it or eat it weird you’ve fucked up such a basic thing
If you already have ketchup, mustard, mayo, bbq, etc then why do I need “burger sauce”? Your burger sauce is probably just some variation on mayo and ketchup anyway. Thanks for making my burger a sloppy piece of shit akin to eating ribs
Burger sauce can be pretty delicious
Ok, serious question, is American fast food different from European? I’ve been to our local McDonalds and the like and the food is fucking atrocious. Tasteless non-identifiable meat patty with some mayo, ketchup, “cheese” and a sorry excuse for a vegetable. I mean it’s just bad. Is American chain food better or are you just delusional?
I mean, I don’t know an american that would list any fast food as the place that serves the best/their favorite burger.
Some places won’t let you order a kids meal unless you have a kid with you.
Why would they care? Is the rule really enforced?
Absolutely they enforce it. To the point that they rather you leave the restaurant.
Some places they actually discount the kids meals. Places that don’t have this policy people would abuse it by only buying 2 or 3 kids meals since that is the best food to cost ratio.
I wonder what the nutrition is of the average fish and chips meal. That would be a slightly more reasonable comparison, wouldn’t it?
He said he was European, not British.
So a kebab then?
Kebabs don’t dominate our eating as much as Burgers do in the US
I eat a burger like once a month
Well since we’re trying to compare the cuisine of a single country against the cuisine of many countries why don’t we just acknowledge that each and every one of them has their own unhealthy food they sometimes indulge in?
the “tiny” burgers like the $5 biggie bag at Wendy’s is the perfect amount of food. jr bacon cheeseburger, small fries, 4 piece nugget, drink.
THATS normal portion, even if it’s not healthy, not a 1/2 lb double cheeseburger 6 inches in diameter, 3 inches thick and a 32oz bucket of cola.
They call the tiny one a “biggie bag”?
They really don’t want to let on that small burgers are available, do they?
It’s because fastfood places need to compete on either value or quality. They can also try to do both by primarily aiming to convey quality and having a special menu or set of offerings that promise the same quality but at a better price.
Wendy’s mostly brands themselves as quality focused as compared to other fast food places. So their “good deal” offering has to promise to offer the same quality at a lower price, which means smaller. So they call it big to camouflage that it’s actually smaller.
I’m not asking for an explanation, I’m criticizing.
I already know very well that you people like to explain why it makes sense that things are screwed and backwards.
What do you mean “you people?” Racism.
After the 2024 election I’m 100% “racist” against Americans. Enjoy 2025.
I don’t even think the stereotypical giant american burger is a thing anymore unless you go to places that specifically market a special large burger. Now a $12 burger is just regular sized. And an $18 “artisanal” burger has a thin disc of meat and is taller than it is wide.
I think the point here is that “regular” for Americans is not the same as “regular” for Europeans.
A European “large drink” in a fastfood restaurant is 500ml. In the US, 473ml is a small one.
I understand that. I was referring to shrinkflation specifically, where the typical regular american size burger is the same as anywhere else now and not like the stereotype before where everything is bigger in the US. I agree it still applies to soda drinks though.
