Clowning around the world

happy 2nd birthday to the newsletter

Hello, everyone!

Today’s edition of the newsletter’s a special one: That’s because it’s the second birthday of The Party Cut! (Technically it’s on the 16th, but whatever.) I’m talkin’ about two full years of covering great and interesting food around Chicago as an independent little publication.

Chicago is a beautiful place, and exploring its food scene is just one of the many ways to celebrate the city. There’s always interesting neighborhoods to see, wonderful people to meet, and of course, great meals to enjoy.

I’ve put a lot of time, effort, and resources into this thing, and admittedly, it’s not easy sometimes, because I stress over it quite a bit. But little milestones like this make me feel good, and whether you’re new to the newsletter or not, I hope you’re getting something out of it. I encourage you to get out there to celebrate our many communities and grab something good to eat.

And just to kick the party off, here’s a 20% off coupon for a subscription. It’ll be live for a week. Subscriptions simply cover basic expenses for the newsletter on my end. But you get paid subscriber editions that drop every other week, plus full access to the archives. If you already have a paid subscription, this should just extend yours at the discounted rate; feel free to poke at me if something gets screwed up.

Today I’m holding The Party Cut’s birthday party at a version of a place that all of you know. Some of you have even had childhood birthday parties here, rolling around in (probably filthy) ball pits, while taking a break to chow down on a cheeseburger and the platonic ideal of fast food fries. It’s the same place you grew attached to Chicken McNuggets dipped in sweet and sour sauce, and now somewhere you go when you’re in a hurry or when you just need some comfort food after a stressful day.

Yep, we’re headed to McDonald’s, but not just any McDonald’s.

That’s because we’re hitting up the McDonald’s location in the Fulton Market District, on Randolph.

“Why the fuck are you covering McDonald’s in your newsletter?” some of you are probably grumbling. “Is Dennis getting paid Big Burger money?”

No, I’m not. Though that would be pretty funny. But this McDonald’s location is notable because it’s located in the ground floor level of its headquarters building. As many of you likely know, the company moved its main operations here from Oak Brook in 2018 (was anyone else convinced it was spelled “Oakbrook?”), and its building is on that hilariously trendy stretch that also houses Girl and the Goat, Au Cheval, Elske, and more.

This McDonald’s sells the entire normal menu of Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, and McNuggets. But it also has a section dedicated to a rotating selection of global items (called Global Favorites) that you can’t get anywhere else aside from the countries they’re featured in. And if you’ve ever traveled internationally, you know it’s always fun to step into a McDonald’s to peek at the menu board to see how it differs from home. This is a tiny way to capture that aspect of travel, right from our very own hometown.

The Global Favorites menu swaps out a few times a year, and currently there’s a swath of stuff from Canada, Spain, Malaysia, and some other cool places.

The McSpicy sandwich ($5.49) hails from Hong Kong.

It features a whole spicy battered chicken thigh, and is topped with lettuce and mayonnaise, all on a sesame seed bun. And true to its name, it’s actually spicy. Not whoop-your-ass spicy, but it’s definitely appreciably so, which makes it really interesting. The chicken has some crunch to it, too, and the fact that it’s whole muscle dark meat makes it much more flavorful than a typical emulsified McChicken sandwich patty. The thigh is also better than the chicken breast filet on the McCrispy sandwich, which is typically a lot drier. I can’t believe I have this much opinion about a fast food product.

Overall, I’m genuinely a fan of this thing for its simplicity, execution, and seasoning, I just wish every McDonald’s chicken sandwich was like this one.

The McSpicy BLT ($6.99) is from Singapore, and has the same spicy chicken thigh as the Hong Kong sandwich, but with the addition of bacon, lettuce, and tomato.

If you’re going to get one single item from the Global Favorites menu, I’d make it this one. That’s because it’s got the whole superior chicken element, which is moist and flavorful, plus it has those extra sandwich embellishments, making this feel like a complete package.

I’m not sure if it’s just because this is the McDonald’s flagship space, but the bacon is actually crisp here, by the way. We all know fast food bacon normally sucks ass, which is why this is a refreshing detail.

The lone burger on the Global Favorites menu is the Philly Cheese Stack from the UK ($6.99).

It has two burger patties, American cheese, cheese sauce, grilled onions, crispy onions, and pickles, all on a cleft-top bun. It may have the name Philly in it, but it’s a far cry from a cheesesteak, though I can sort of see the loose connotation.

I…don’t have anything good to say about this sandwich. Too bad, because I was looking forward to it, too. I’m not sure how a burger can have that much cheese on it and still be so bone dry, but those patties were apparently not having a good day. I did appreciate the double-pronged attack on the onion, but that’s about it.

In terms of global sides, the Crisscut Chips ($4.49) are from Malaysia, and are pretty much just waffle-cut potato chips.

Based off the preview photo on the kiosk, I thought they’d be more akin to waffle fries, but nope, they’re regular old skin-on chips. These are a mixed bag; since they’re so thin, some of them were stale by the time I got them. Others were nice and crispy, and the whole order was still somewhat warm when I started munching away. But they don’t come close to dethroning McDonald’s regular fries.

The Belgian Biscoff McFlurry was out of stock (boo!), so I was stuck with donuts for dessert.

I tried a few types, including the Triple Chocolate Mini Donut from Canada ($1.99). It’s a dense cake-style donut that’s happily generous on the chocolate flavor, but the thing really is true to its “mini” name, because it’s truly tiny. The donut is fine, but nothing you haven’t had from a convenience or grocery store before.

I did, however, like the McPops Mix ($3.99), because they were sort of a mini tour between the McDonald’s of Spain and Switzerland.

Donut holes might not seem so novel at first, but the thing is, McDonald’s has sort of given up on interesting pastries in the U.S. In fact, it’s more or less moving towards outsourcing the duty to Krispy Kreme by selling its donuts in McDonald’s stores instead.

The McPops Mix comes with three flavors of filled donut holes. One is filled with a Biscoff cookie-flavored filling, and while it’s not going to blow your socks off, it’s something you can eat absentmindedly as a snack with a hot coffee.

The white chocolate version, also from Spain, is sort of like a Bavarian cream donut with a little less personality.

That’s because the center filling, which has the texture of a very thick pudding, basically has just a plain milky flavor to it. It’s certainly not bad, but if you didn’t tell me what it was, I’d just have assumed it was just a cream-filled donut hole. Though knowing it’s white chocolate makes it feel somehow classier.

But out of the three, I liked the Berry McPops from Switzerland the best.

It’s a jam-filled donut with a good pop of berry flavor, but what those berries are, the world may never know. In fact, the McDonald’s app glitches out every time I click on its nutritional info in order to dig further. Oh well. I’m genuinely shocked that I liked this one over the Biscoff one, which arguably sounds like more fun on paper, but the truth is, the berry version just has more flavor.

Even though these were novel items, everything was still unmistakably McDonald’s in flavor. That’s part of what makes this location a fun visit — it all tastes like the ultra-processed Golden Arches food you know, but with a few bits of international preference tossed in. Would I ever tell you to go here over a mom and pop place? Of course not. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a whole lot of fun.

And it’s also an entertaining place to bring tourists to, especially those who are here seeing Chicago for the first time. That’s because it’s McDonald’s headquarters — if anything, your friends and family can return home to say they saw Hamburger University in person, and tried a spicy chicken sandwich that they only serve in Hong Kong. (I have a feeling teens especially would enjoy this bragging right, but I could be wrong.)

I also think it’s weirdly fitting this McDonald’s is also in the heart of the trendiest dining destination in Chicago. Even though it’s a big soulless mega-corporate chain, at least it’s trying to, uh, fit in with its surroundings. And it’s somewhere you can sneak off to if the line for Au Cheval’s too long, because at least you know you won’t have to wait too long for a burger.

Too bad there’s no ball pit, though. That would have made today a real birthday party.

McDonald’s Global HQ
1035 W Randolph St
Chicago, IL 60607
(312) 291-9224

Hours: 5 a.m. - 10 p.m. daily

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Two years. Wow. I’m having fun and I hope you are too. As usual, I could use your help spreading the word of The Party Cut, so if you enjoyed the newsletter, please share today’s edition on social media — every bit of extra reach helps. Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, work Slack, wherever, it all works wonders:

And don’t forget to exercise your 20% off coupon this week! That’s my present to you all.

Okay, everyone, this is where I leave you for now — hope you have a fun and happy week ahead of you. Love you guys.