Wild menu items only found at one McDonald’s in the world
There are burgers and shakes, for sure, but at this very unique McDonald’s there are menu items you won’t find anywhere else.
If you’re a die hard McDonald’s fan, it might just be worth jumping on a plane for 24 hours from Australia to go to this one branch of the burger giant.
Tucked away in the suburbs of Orlando, halfway between Walt Disney World and Universal Studios, is a Macca’s unlike any other.
It has a menu you can only find at this single restaurant.
Welcome to the McDonald’s on International Drive, also known as the “Epic McD”. Not only is it billed as the world’s largest Macca’s, but it’s the only one that sells wood-fired pizzas, fresh pasta, Belgian waffles, made-to-order omelettes and whole cakes smothered with icing and dripping with calories. All served to your table on fine china by a waiter.
Your local drive through Macca’s, this is not.
It’s gaudy and eye-opening, but this severe menu swerve is not everyone’s idea of a happy meal.
“I’m not saying it’s bad pizza,” one British tourist told news.com.au. “But I’m not convinced they should roll it out.”
The Orlando outlet bills itself as the “world’s largest entertainment McDonald’s”. It boasts
a huge kids play area, an animatronic piano player with a moon for a head and an entire neon amusement arcade with all the childhood noise and chaos that brings. Epic McD is not a place to go and chill.
But the real novelty is on the touch screen menus on the ground floor.
Create you own pizza and pasta
Scroll down past the chicken burgers and you’ll find a curious addition: Create your own pizzas and pastas.
“The unique location of Orlando allows us the unique opportunity to diversify the menu,” McDonald’s USA executive Georgette LeMieux told news.com.au.
And it really is unique – none of the other 40,000 Macca’s globally have these dishes, she confirmed. And none are ever likely too either. This isn’t a branch where they test out new tastes; it’s just a huge one off.
“Overall, customers love it,” Ms LeMieux said. “It’s completely unexpected.”
She said one of the comments she’d received was it was the “King of McDonald’s”. High praise indeed.
If you opt for the so-called “gourmet menu,” prepare to lose five minutes as you sink into a whirlwind of options. If plucking for pasta, it asks if you want tricolore tortellini, linguine, cavatappi or ravioli? I’m somewhat ashamed to say I’d never heard of cavatappi until this Florida McDonald's introduced me to it. (For the uninitiated, it’s a corkscrew-shaped pasta.)
Sauce wise, these include classic bolognese, alfredo and basil pesto.
Then there’s an onslaught of proteins and vegetables to add to your dish, including – yes – broccoli.
This love it or hate veg is probably the most incongruous thing to find itself on a Macca’s menu. Just a picture of lonely green florets, staring out at you, amid a sea of burger patties and thickshakes.
For the pizza, you can have it topped with various meats and extras like olives, pineapple or capsicum. The base can be smeared with options including a creamy white sauce or a vague “pizza sauce”.
I went for a linguine with an olive oil and garlic sauce with bacon, olives, onions, something called “sausage crumbles,” and mushrooms.
My pizza (this was research so why not have both?) had a classic tomato sauce with pepperoni, sausage, spinach, olives and jalapeños.
A pimped up cake menu also included chocolate corruption cake, peanut butter explosion cake and a glazed apple fritter. There were rumours of Belgian waffles with strawberries and cream but none were to be found at this visit.
Real pizza oven, real cooking stations
Order done, in a dedicated area of the store the magic began.
And it looked nothing like the production line of your normal burger joint.
Pizza bases were topped and eased into a rather impressive oven, flames licking the bricks at the rear. Over a hot stove, a staff member chucked ingredients into a sizzling pan and tossed it altogether for the pasta sauce.
The menu, unconvincingly, stated the pizza was 250 calories. But it seemed to have completely missed how many calories were in the pizza base itself.
The pasta came in at 370 calories including the linguine, sauce and toppings. Although admittedly this was without a creamy sauce.
In comparison, a Quarter Pounder is around 550 calories and a McChicken Sandwich anywhere between 270 to 400 calories.
Price wise the pasta came in at $US12.48 ($A18.56) and the pizza $US10.28 ($A15.29). That compares relatively favourably to the price of $US11.69 ($A17.39) for a Big Mac meal. But you do get a drink and fries with that.
The weird Macca’s feast arrives
Customers ordering from the “gourmet menu” were given a table number and then, 10 minutes later, the feast arrived.
It’s worth remembering that McDonald’s has tried serving pizza before. In the late 1980s the McPizza debuted. Small and disappointing it was mocked as “McFrozen”. As the ’90s continued, the unloved and shunned McPizza faded from stores.
remember when we sold McPizza
— McDonald's (@McDonalds) November 2, 2020
This McDonald’s pizza is not that pizza. This one was good.
Served on a tin tray, it was large, golden and puffy. The base was thin and shatteringly crispy. The jalapeños gave it a kick and the sausage gave it an earthiness.
On first glance, the pasta also impressed, served piping hot in a porcelain bowl and flecked with parsley.
But it was downhill from there.
It looked anaemic. The bacon was limp, pale like ham, and the mushrooms bland. The garlic and oil sauce suggested it would have some oomph of taste but it was more like a weak splutter of flavour.
I assumed the oil would be infused with garlic. But rather roasted cloves were buried in the linguine, though eaten on their own they were soft and sweet little parcels.
It was served with a triangular piece of dry bread. For some reason. Carb on carb – it added nothing.
Matt, from Cleethorpes in England’s northeast, was visiting the theme parks when he stumbled across Epic McD. He’d just had the pizza. He hadn’t added any broccoli.
“I was surprised you could get this at McDonald’s; it’s a bit of novelty value,” he told news.com.au.
Matt was also a fan of the crispy base.
“It was a bit oily, dripping down my fingers, but it tasted nice.”
Matt’s travelling companion Abbey was less convinced by the “King” of Macca’s.
“There’s a place for pizza. And it’s not McDonald’s,” she said.
“[But] it’s better than Pizza Hut.”
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