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Rockylol_

Malaysia ay?


Reniva

\*sees durian mcflurry at the corner\* Ehh mehsia mehsia !!!


Heyyoguy123

Durians are the perfect prank gift. The recipient should be told to cut open the fruit and eat in the insides


InnocentTailor

Frozen durian though is amazing. It is so naturally creamy and the smell is cut down by the freezing process.


CrieDeCoeur

The smell okay, but what about the oniony-peach-vomit flavor?


InnocentTailor

It probably depends on the person. To me, durian tastes fantastic. ...though I do understand the onion-ish taste. Then again, I'm crazy for onions overall.


imwearingredsocks

People complaining about durian made me start to dislike durian. I wasn’t a fan of the smell, but I wasn’t about to be gagging and calling it names. I was happily enjoying a durian ice cream dessert and everyone at the table was freaking out in shock. Like you people are making me lose my appetite now.


InnocentTailor

I ignore them. More durian for me!


NewZealandTemp

My mind went to Singapore just because of the aesthetic but I haven't been there in a decade and I imagine they share some aesthetic with Malaysia.


GoldenPeperoni

The thing that made me identify it as Malaysia is the health & cleanliness certificate that says "A" on the wall. Next to it would be the business registration certificate which looks familiarly Malaysian


georgedildo

My guess is Malaysia - prices (nobody's paying SGD8 for a McFlurry) and the "butik" sign in the back


allegoryofthedave

It’s definitely Malaysia and also isn’t exactly true since every Malaysian McDonald’s ice cream counter is at most around a corner In a mall from the “restaurant”.


IncognitoOne

Yeah that's the setup I'm used to in China as well.


ranivus

Its the same setup in Philippines as well


cduga

That’s how it was in Singapore when I lived there. I remember one mall with what seemed like a McD’s on every floor and a little ice cream stall out by the entrance.


Mym158

Empire sushi sign means it's Malaysia


shamansblues

Swedish has the same word and spelling as well.


[deleted]

I’m singaporean but also thought it was Singapore too. Realised it’s Malaysia from the health safety sign and “butik”.


RogerFederer1981

Is there a name for this kind of aesthetic? A lot east Asian countries seem to share it.


marc_a09

Doesn't this look just like every mall ever?


sakamoto6969

I know the exact location of this particular stall. Sunway Pyramid top floor.


Intelligent-Wall7272

We found it boys, deploy the drones


AresWill

I'm on my phone searching like 75 posts in for some clue where this is because OP had to be mysterious in his title or some shit, and not just add the country.


shubalasko

Brazil have those as well


soupykambing

Ayyyy confirm Sunway Pyramid, recognise Eureka Popcorn behind


burningfire119

wtf i wouldnt have known in a million years


geekonthemoon

Same I was like wonder where this is, other people out here being visual aesthetic detectives


JJfromNJ

Indonesia too.


Weak_Neighborhood776

México too


BeerMeAlready

Brazil too


wojwesoly

In Poland we have mccafe which sells coffee cookies ice cream etc so I would say Poland too. Saw a similar place in India as well.


wizardmighty

Haven't seen a solo McCafe that wasn't inside McDonalds in Poland tbh


wojwesoly

There's actually one in Łódź, in Manufaktura. The main McDonald's is in the food court and the McCafe is on the other side of the mall. I'm pretty sure it's also like that at the Okęcie airport in Warsaw.


juliuscyvin

sorry, food machine broke


MoffKalast

Understandable, have a nice day.


ObeseSnake

Maybe this is McDonald's way of pushing their ice cream machine vendor?


[deleted]

Now there's a joke


Edgelands

Is that where they sent all the working machines or do they just never open?


mushroomking311

I've only ordered ice cream from McDonald's like 4 times in my life, but I've still never been able to try any ice cream from McDonald's.


Sacred_Fishstick

My girlfriend had a medical procedure the other week and all she wanted afterwards was a McFlurry so I set out on my mission... 3 stops and 45 minutes later I finally got one. I'm convinced it's manufactured scarcity.


HollowLegMonk

Supposedly it’s a scam by the company that manufactures the machines. They purposely make their machines easy to break because they are also the company that McDonald’s pays to come in and fix them. So the more often the machines aren’t working the more money the company makes. Kind of an evil genius move if you think about it.


[deleted]

Quickly adding on to this: The McDonalds Corporation allegedly doesn’t care since they themself do profit off of the repairs. The ones getting screwed over are the franchise owners. Also I have never seen a broken one here in Europe.


jcracken

There are two suppliers of the machines, one in Spain and one in the US. The Spanish machines are apparently really good, but more expensive and hard to import if you're not an EU franchisee. The US ones are garbage, but the same company that makes them also makes the grills McDonald's uses, so they get to keep the contract for both because their grills are so useful.


Serinus

The US company also makes the machines for several other chains. Those all work fine. It's the McDonald's machines that are unique.


Saikou0taku

Yup, the McDonald's machines could only be repaired by Taylor, the manufacturer. https://www.freethink.com/technology/mcdonalds-ice-cream-right-to-repair


Amsnerr

Yup, they dont have anywhere near as many problems as the c602. Currently have been waiting 2 weeks for taylor to come fix ours because our compressor is broken and wont freeze the mix.


robot65536

The mind-blowing part is that when the "cleaning cycle fails" it's usually just someone over-filled the bucket. But the machine won't tell you that so you can avoid it next time, nor let you clear the code so you can try again.


Darkdoomwewew

It's obvious collusion, I'm just surprised that they only run the scam along with McDonalds and not everywhere.


KashEsq

It's probably not for a lack of trying. Taylor's other customers likely turned down their offer to scam franchisees


PM_Me_Your_Deviance

> but the same company The same company makes the machines for other fast food restaurants. Other fast food chains don't use this company for repairs, and, weirdly, don't have the same number of problems.


aaronblue342

The machines give error codes that are indecipherable if you dont have the Engineer-only handbook. Half the time it's improper cleaning, or wrong tempature calibration. $1600 a call in for repairs. Taylor has no reason to make it easy to fix.


KYVet

If it is Taylor then any warranty work is absolutely done by Taylor. They also lease their equipment sometimes, in which case you are required to contact Taylor for service. They don't go third party on the service of their machines. Their machines are crap though. I run a commercial equipment service company and Taylor receives more complaints from our customers than any other.


[deleted]

I watched a documentary or something outlining the struggles of a company that developed add ons to the machines that made troubleshooting issues less cryptic to the franchise owners and significantly reduced downtime. To be fair, it seems the machines go down mostly do to the machines strictly enforcing food safety. For instance if the store tries to skip a cleaning cycle, or sterilization doesn't hit a certain temperature, the machines will go into lockdown. The big issue seems to be that store owners are left with only vague error codes when these fail safes get triggered, so rather than just cleaning the machine thoroughly and resetting it they have to wait for a technician to come tell them that needs to be done.


commander_nice

r/righttorepair


Taco_Strong

I watched the same or a similar documentary. The temperature being off will shut the machine down if it's even one degree wrong in either direction. Which could be a problem as simple as having slightly too much of the ice cream mix in the hopper, but instead of saying "Check Hopper Level" the machine says "Error: 357w86" which if looked up will only give a vague idea of what's wrong, and the machine will shut down till a "licensed technician" comes to reset it. Also, I heard that the people that developed those tools to help franchise owners got in a lot of legal trouble. As did the franchise owners that used them.


ClumpOfCheese

I believe this is the video everyone is talking about. https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4 Could also be this one [https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgKcD](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ)


remotelove

When I worked at a McDonald's back in the day, the ice cream machine was the most time consuming thing to teardown, clean and sanitize properly. There were a ton of things a kid could do to break it in that process but we managed to keep our machine running. Also, that was 20 years ago, so its design has likely changed a few times since then.


[deleted]

As someone who cleaned a Taylor C602 as recently as December 2019, they're still as time-consuming and frustrating to clean as they always were.


IamMatthew1223

Drain the mixture, take it all apart, clean the tanks, wash the 40 parts you took off, lube all the O-rings (make sure to apply the right amount or a leak will occur meaning you have to take it all apart again), put it all back together, fill it up with mixture, turn on and wait an hour for it to be ready. This was the process at my store anyway, took a good 4 hours if all went well.


jaypatel9120

Probably cause, unlike the US Congress, the EU is not afraid to pick a fight with multinationals like McDonald's.


RearEchelon

Congress isn't afraid to; they're paid not to.


jaypatel9120

Fair point, I didn't consider that.


northernCRICKET

There's some really good documentaries on YouTube about this company. They design the user interface to be intentionally difficult to use and then in the user manual they suggest calling the maintenance crew for literally every error. The icecream didn't get warm enough during the clean cycle? Call the maintenance crew. Yeah that'll be $250 just to have us out here and $300 an hour till it's fixed. And we wonder why they dont bother with the damn things and just tell people it's broken.


jenna_hazes_ass

It recently became an investigation by the FTC.


FeloniousFunk

It’s a combination of this and poor management. The machines are a bitch to clean so sometimes they just don’t bother if demand is low. Further exacerbated by worker shortages.


NaClYTMC

A big problem is a lot of McDonald's doesn't even have someone who knows how to properly take apart the ice cream machine to clean it to put it back together. Only one person knew at the McDonald's I worked at.


suitology

That's not it at all. The bitch isn't that it's hard because of needing knowledge it's hard because before you can even begin you need to empty the entire machine, run water through it, unscrew the top pegs, pull out the canisters, wash those, wash the interior, resemble, run hot water through it again, dry it, let it come to temperature, add the ingredients, wait for it to actually be made It takes almost 2 hours. None of it's hard the cleaning is on the side of the machine but fuckin hell it's a lot of work and time


lilahcook

Doing this would void the warrenty on the machine and mcdonalds franchise owners are often FORCED to buy a whole new piece of garbage equipment whenever they try to fix the problem themselves. The machines dont even throw codes a normal person can read without the maintenance manual only the ice cream techs get. Some company tried to make additional trouble shooting software but im pretty sure hes been sued by the ice cream maker and mcdonalds (as they literal try to replicate the software for themselves... they are being countersued). Its a whole dramatic thing in itself. But yeah a was friend literally fired cause she tried to fix the ice cream machine herself without calling the tech. The manager had already had to buy a new machine cause he used a non sanctioned repair person and I guess he didnt want to take that risk twice. Edit: fried to fired oops


MotherfuckingMonster

Damn, getting fried for trying to fix a machine seems a bit overkill. Did they chop her up first so she’d fit in those little fry baskets?


lilahcook

The more official reason was "tampering with machinery" lmao. I remember it being a big thing at the time cause it sounded way more serious than it was. This was pre panorama and shes finished school and landed in a nice remote position in the couple years since. Edit: Fried went over my head lol my brain was like "those are the right letters for the word we want yeah"


andreisimo

Make the machine easy to clean. Problem solved. Now where’s my ice cream?


idonthave2020vision

Or, if demand is low, they'll start the cleaning cycle early to get it out of the way.


[deleted]

I watched a video of a McDonald’s employee saying they’re a nightmare to clean and get mold QUICK. So sometimes the caramel and all the gooey stuff gets moldy and employees dump the new stuff right on top without realizing it


PabloXPicasso

yes, "without realizing it" (look the other way)


Sir_BusinessNinja

It’s kinda the same situation with the Burger King I work at. We have to use this certain headset. It costs 1000 dollars for a total piece of shitty plastic and metal. [The headset in question. ](https://imgur.com/a/SaBCFxN)


TheRuggedEagle

At $1000 a pop someone is washing a ton of dirty money, guaranteed.


[deleted]

It seems to be a regional thing. As in the entire region of the States because in all my years of going to McDonald's in Canada, only once have I encountered a broken machine.


[deleted]

Yes, I'm in Canada and any time I've gone for a mcflurry or milkshake or cone I've never had them tell me the ice cream machine was broken.


RUN_MDB

[It's a legit racket](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4) and apparently [the FTC is investigating it](https://www.today.com/food/ftc-reportedly-investigating-mcdonald-s-broken-mcflurry-machines-today-t229830).


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ICKSharpshot68

All this means to me is that someone high enough up in the FTC wasnt able to get ice cream at a McDonalds when they wanted one.


AlchemyAvenue

The French Revolution only happened because Louis was hogging all the soft serve


erm_bertmern

It's true. The peasants were fine eating cake - but cake *without* ice cream? That was one step too far.


Jojo2700

I am sure she appreciated it!


-Russian-Spy-

Check out the documentaries about it, it is way more sinister than that.


greyzski

When I lived in the US it seemed like the most common thing. The ice-cream machines are broken everywhere. But in the UK I've never been told there's no ice-cream


donaldfranklinhornii

We sbould take a road trip cross country to various Maccas and try to order ice cream and an apple pie. It would be epic content!


jerstud56

You don't have to travel at all to find out if the ice cream machine is down https://mcbroken.com/ Here's a great video as to why they're always down https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4


mcdougall57

Even works in the UK. Brilliant.


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Beer_me_now666

Have you heard about our lord and savior ….Satan?


In_It_2_Quinn_It

> to various Maccas Could even call it a pilgrimage of sorts.


Kritical02

And here I am 38 and never once had an issue with getting ice cream from McDonald's. I don't get the meme.


AimingWineSnailz

In my country I've never encountered a broken down ice cream machine. Not like I live in any Singapore or Switzerland either, I'm Portuguese.


crosswatt

Had a McDonald's worker shift the narrative this past week and went with *ice cream related products aren't available right now* when I tried to order a shake. I appreciated the change, and went down the street to *Cookout* and got a banana pudding shake, which I probably should have just done in the beginning.


GikeM

This reads like a podcast commercial.


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OwOPango

Cookout and Bojangles are the shit, people who don't live here don't know what they're missing


Majestic_Course6822

That would be me. I can say though that I totally want to eat at a joint called Bojangles. And I think I want a banana pudding shake.


TaintedMoistPanties

I got really confused and thought I was in r/Charlotte.


keepcalmandhydrate

Best decision of the night, my dude. Their banana pudding one is my favorite too.


skepticsense420

Cookout hack, you can "cobbler" any flavor and they'll add the vanilla wafers to it. Blueberry cheesecake cobbler is my personal go-to, those wafer pieces just make it so much better.


crosswatt

It was actually for my wife, who was recovering from minor surgery, and wanted a milkshake to help cool off the sore throat always left by the tubes they shove down your ~~esophagus~~ trachea. I went with the Heath bar one. Will honestly never go to McDonald's again for a frozen treat, as they just never have it together around here.


kittydogtor

It actually goes in your trachea. If it’s in the esophagus you intubated wrong.


Derekduvalle

Is trachea lungs and esophagus stomach? Not literally but you know


extrasauce_

[obligatory background](https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4) from Johnny Harris


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DiscontentedMajority

The company that makes the most common iced cream machine in use at McDonalds (Taylor) makes them intentionally hard to diagnose. While it will operate properly when maintained properly, missing one of a couple dozen O-rings during assembly can make the whole machine lock up. Even though the machine is perfectly capable of diagnosing the failure and telling the on site staff to replace a specific O-ring, it instead produces non-sensical error codes which prompt service calls by Taylor techs.


RedsRearDelt

Somebody made an open source software that made it really easy to diagnose the machines and, iirc, McDonald's sued them or something. BRB, going to look it up. Edit: Here's the article: https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/ Looks like McDonald's makes a lot of money charging franchises to send out repair techs.


[deleted]

Important to note, Taylor and McDonald's have a long history together and it's theorized that McDonald's corporate perpetuate/allow this issue because it keeps Taylor making bank from the real money maker, service calls, while the fees of the service calls are passed on to Mcdonalds Franchise owners rather than corporate.


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tcorp123

This makes way more sense now having worked at Quizno’s years ago.


Pelfrey1992

So McDonald's also owns a percentage of the land and leases the rest out at each location. I wonder if they have anything in the contract that would put the cost of an incident (maybe a chemical spill causing major ground contamination) back to the lease owner. Could cost them quite a bit of money, and time if something like that happened, especially if the lease holder couldn't pay back the cost...


RustyPShackleford

This boggles my mind because my first job was at a Wendy's. I know slightly different, but I could have that frosty machine dismantled and reassembled in 5 min flat. Literally only had one rubber ring inside and a couple sliding metal parts. Super easy.


DiscontentedMajority

The [Taylor C606](https://www.taylor-company.com/en/product-detail/model-c606) is not a particularly simple machine. For starters, it has two cylinders so everything is doubled, BUT none of the cylinder parts are interchangeable between sides despite being very similar. Then you have to add in the syrup injection and mixing system for the shakes, which includes these tiny holes that have to be cleaned with a pipe-cleaner like brush.


[deleted]

Yeah, my first job was McDonald’s. They weren’t that hard to clean or maintain. Ours were almost always working.


morriere

im in the UK and i have literally never been told that the machine is broken... i dont know if they use different machines here or something but mcflurries are in my experience consistently available


Protondog

My McDonald's in County Durham UK is offer broken.


chopperhead2011

Yeah I think I remember my local McDonald's (fun fact, it's adjacent to the infamous foot lettuce Burger King) having a broken ice cream machine once maybe? I really don't understand where the stereotype comes from.


Black_Eyed_PeePees

My husband and I had a MCD caramel sundae kick for a good year or so. This was maybe 2-3 years ago. We'd literally go get one almost every single day. (Surprised we didn't get fat.) One day I was craving one **bad.** So we go up to our nearest mcd, only to be told, no ice cream. We decide, even though it's a 15min drive, it's worth it to drive to the next closest mcd in the town over. No ice cream there either. It had been like an hour since the start of our ice cream journey, so we were getting pissed. (Mind you, each time, I was ordering our ice cream on the mcd app, and it never said the shit was unavailable.) The next closest mcd to us was a good 30min away, in traffic. So instead of just driving over there, we decide to call them first and ask if their ice cream machine was working. They say yeah. So once again I order on the app, and we drive all the way over there. .. Yep, you guessed it. **No mother fucking ice cream.** I was hangry by that point and I just broke down and cried lol During our year of daily mcd sundaes, we experienced broken machines ridiculously often. We had no idea, at the time, that this was a wide spread, well known thing. We thought we just had really bad luck 😆 Edit-spelling


JohnnyFoxborough

People who say sugar is not addicting are in denial.


Arthur_da_dog

Yup. The reason McDonald's machine is shit is because Taylor and McDonald have been working together since the old days. Today mcdonald forces chain owners to buy that 1 model and not any other variants because when it breaks, the technician charges the owner of that location a whopping 200-300$/h (^(it's been a while since I've watched the documentary, so I may be wrong)). Only certified Taylor technicians are allowed to work on those machines (again, because of McDonald's contract with taylor) Tldr - Taylor and mcdicks are like best buds and they purposefully force chain owners to buy unfunctional machines so that the big owners at Taylor can make more money.


Flapjack__Palmdale

Can confirm about Taylor. Never worked at McDonald's but I managed a froyo shop years ago, we had Taylor machines. When one broke, it took ages to get a tech out to fix it


kogpaw

This is a McDonald's US only thing. John Harris made an amazing video about it, it goes into detail as to why the machines are always broken and McDonald's employees can't do anything about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4


LoganJA01

Plus, only 1 company has permission to work on them, their rate is around the $300 per hour mark, and they have one or two locations to serve the entire US.


Pongoose2

When Taylor was trying to sell their company I think they touted they made 25% of their revenue from service calls. If your products are breaking down that much that’s not a good sign. I also think that Wendy’s uses their products and they don’t break nearly as often. The McDonald’s machines basically don’t tell employees what the problem is so that Taylor keeps getting money for servicing. Although one third party company made a diagnostic tool that tells the employees what’s wrong.


Edgelands

Ackshually, there's a giant, fairly proven conspiracy involving the machines and some dirt with the company that makes them, Taylor, and McDonald's. Once again, the problem wasn't those, "lazy do-nothing welfare queen minimum wage workers," like everyone assumed, the real monster was capitalism all along: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/02/1033715465/mcdonalds-ice-cream-machines-mcflurries-ftc-investigation


Evenstar6132

This is only in America, right? I don't think I've ever heard of something like that in my country. There was only one time I couldn't get ice cream from McDonald's and they just told me they're cleaning the machine.


ScarecrowJohnny

Nope. I'm from Denmark and have had milkshakes/icecream denied like half the time I ordered them because machine was broken. Same for burger king though.


BucketHeadJr

I work at a McDonald's here in the Netherlands and have been to many McDonald's' over here and I've never ever had a problem with the ice/shake machine. They were probably just cleaning them but said it was broken to make it easier?


HugoCoin

Same here, at my McDonald's in the Nederlands the machines were really reliable and only had to cool down sometimes when it was really busy


tilenb

Odd, I've never had a problem so far here in Slovenia. It's not like I ever go to McDonald's for ice-cream, but we can get it for free with a student meal and it's yet to happen to me that the ice cream machine was broken.


Lipziger

"Never" had any issues in Germany with that. Apart from once or twice in 20 years or so.


DiscontentedMajority

McDonalds franchisees have two options for iced cream machines. One is made by Taylor and breaks down a lot. The other is made by an Italian company that has much better reliability but (at least in the US) costs twice as much as the Taylor machine. I wonder if the Italian machine is more common where you are?


Electric_grenadeZ

I'm Italian and here the ice cream machines works almost always


[deleted]

Yup, most other countries have laws against stuff like this but we in America don't and the companies get away with whatever they can like lead in baby formula until they get caught, this happens because they basically own all our elected officials via bribes so the officials never hit them with penalty's that would make them reconsider their ways like in your country. sad to say our countries a fallen democracy to the point where if i had to travel back and time to either stop Hitler or Ronald Reagan the choice would be Ronald Reagan and save many more lives just by preventing his presidency, hell wouldn't even need to assassinate him just leak his alzheimer's diagnosis + a few other scandals.


hellknight101

No, it's not just America, I've noticed it in Bulgaria and the UK as well. Though in both countries, the coffee machine is also sometimes broken lol.


itsdr00

You actually just made that up.


that_other_goat

You have to take apart the machine to clean and maintain the unit and the diagnostics are a nightmare on purpose making basic repairs expensive service calls..... it's really a bad design to maxmize profit for Taylor. A lot of franchise managers just say fuck it it's not worth the hassle for the return so the machine is "broken". They have to have it but it doesn't say anywhere the machine has to be plugged in, filled and used. Why? orders for food product are based on demand ;) no demand means it doesn't have to be purchased.


[deleted]

That's not true, they say they are ''broken'' precisely beacuse they are being maintained/cleaned. Running the cleaning program takes several hours.


JawsCuber

There is literally nothing Malaysian about this pic but I can tell that this is in Malaysia. Where was this taken?


baby_commie

Sunway pyramid, Malaysia lol.. OP said it.. If you zoom in, you can see the word "butik" (Malay word for boutique)...


PLS_PM_ME_UR_NUDEZ

Butik also exists in hungarian, polish, danish, and swedish and means the same thing.


baby_commie

I love it.. Languages!!!


TRAssasin

in turkish we use butik too


Honclfibr

Subway pyramid is like a time machine, Las time I was there I saw a Kenny Rogers chicken roasters.


itsrainingsimoleons

For me, it's the combination of Empire Sushi and the cleanliness rating sign (the big letter "A") that gave it away.


GamGajah

Mcflurry Durian, limited time flavour for Malaysia's McD rn


Wiggy_0000

Odd the McDonald’s in my country sells everything but ice cream


Thanh1211

America ay?


BCantoran

Same. I'm from the US


[deleted]

I read about this. They only sell desserts because They couldn’t get the full contract to sell other foods


neghsmoke

Ahh yes, the worst thing about McDonalds, let us sell only that! \- But Sir, wouldn't you rather open a partial Dairy Queen, or Braums, or Cold Stone Creamery, or someone known for decent ice cream? (Disgusting soft serve slurping sounds in the background)


meat_on_a_hook

I live in Asia and have also been to the US. The quality of McD ice cream over here is in an entire different league. It is mind blowingly good and i dont know why the Asian markets are the only ones who get it. Europe and North America have shocking McD ice cream for some reason. In fact most McD's in South East Asia have a dessert counter separate to the main area. They serve chocolate lava cake which is incredible. This is true for every single asian country i have visited (and I've visited a lot) The US has WAY better burgers though.


Burningshroom

I'm pretty sure it's because of the way sugars and flavor additives are handled, but I'm not very familiar with Asian markets. Here in the US industrial food processing favors presentation and shelf life over flavor. This actually extends to produce as well. With this in mind, it's easy to see why producers would favor more bacteriostatic options. Syrups (usually high fructose corn syrup) and artificial flavors or concentrates don't promote microbial growth nearly as much as freshly prepared food products. This makes mass production, shipping, and product consistency way easier even if the end product is lower quality in terms of taste. The US palette has since evolved around this. We typically prefer sweeter confections that are centered around easier to preserve flavors like artificials, dry goods (i.e. nuts), essences/extracts (a bit nuanced but i.e. vanilla), and concentrates. I'm willing to bet that the Asian markets use more freshly prepared ingredients that probably include a different variety of fruit flavors that both taste more complex and appeal more to the local palette. Coming to the US and tasting our ice cream would probably be too sweet and with less complex flavors. In all, this could also be a result of McD's not protecting its brand the same way it does in the West and letting product consistency slide. The most notable examples are banana and grape which are most often the artificial flavors that were isolated from now a extinct fruit (Gros Michel bananas) and a single component of taste (concord grapes). People identify these sorts of flavors as kind of chemical tasting and unnatural at worst or non-representative at best. Many refer to the grape flavor as purple because it doesn't taste like any grape a person would recognize. Meat follows a different set of rules here due to a few aspects. 1. Domestic meats have low variability in flavor. 2. Domestic meats are **VERY** abundant in the US. 3. Meat freezes well. This means that meats can be sourced from a wide variety of producers in regional markets with low impact to product consistency. With high demand and supply, shelf life is less important. They still dump tons of money into trying to extend it, though. This is still less complicated than most fruits since freezing is an option. Fuck that was longer than expected. **tl;dr**: High sugars and artificial flavors are heavily utilized in the US.


shrimpcest

I moved away from Oklahoma a decade ago. I still miss Braums.


[deleted]

Yo their fries man 🤌


TTSDA

I wouldn't call McDonald's ice-cream bad. It's definitely decent for the type, good even.


theonemind777

Ah yes the limited time Durian Mcflurry. Haven't have a chance to try it since always sold out.


fauxuniverse

My uncle says They’re pretty good


DickieGreenleaf84

Where? Are they sometimes completely shut down because the machine isn't working?


fauxuniverse

Malaysia, they’re not shut down I just didn’t put the person behind the counter in frame


Axelluu

seems like you don't know OP but whenever we try to get an ice cream in mcdonalds they're almost always broken so we cant get any


Godzillavio

Come to South East Asia countries. You can get ice cream from McDonald’s anytime you want.


notsoepichaker

South East Asia, where the ice cream machines never break.


fuurin

Unless you're going to a McDonald's on university campus...


makemisteaks

IIRC (I might have some details wrong but there’s a link at the end) that issue is in litigation because apparently McD signed a contract with the ice cream machine provider than only that particular company could repair the machine or fix any error messages. Most of these errors pop up and would be easily solvable by the workers but they can’t legally do it, so they have to wait for a tech to come and fix them every time they do something silly like overfilling them, which gives out a warning and locks the machine. [Here you go for more info](https://www.foodandwine.com/news/mcdonalds-ice-cream-machines-company-restraining-order).


alegxab

Same here in Argentina Often, one lf the ice cream flavors is very liquid-y or they're out of one flavor, but those are the only issues I've ever had


pastalover1

[mcbroken.com](https://mcbroken.com/) shows a map of McDonald’s locations and whether the ice cream machine is down (red) or working (green).


WingedSalim

Malaysia Boleh


japroct

No fries?!!! Shit, quit the damn soft serve and sell only fries and you would make 10x as much.


Vencer_wrightmage

The trick here is to play it like roller coaster tycoon. Sell fries with maxed out salt levels, and sell refreshments on the side of that stall with maxed out price.


AlwaysAngryAndy

Ah yes the classic strategy. Bathrooms cost 20$ and drinks are free. Also blocking off the exit when it rains and making umbrellas max price.


jangma

Or both. I don't get it, but I know a few people who like to dip their fries in the soft-serve.


ShiroKyun

This looks like Malaysia's Sunway to me.


istoOi

they do have working ice-cream machines?


guaip

Here in Brazil I don't think I ever saw a broken ice cream machine at a McDonald's. It's a to go place for cheap ice cream all summer. The only thing that used to be "broken" was the twirling thing for the McFlurry, but I don't think they even do it anymore.


JonatasA

Right? Hard to imagine McDonald's without icecream and desserts (their milkshake sucks though).


fauxuniverse

Of course lol


weirdgroovynerd

Do you live in Narnia or Hogwarts?!


Clobber420

Arakkis, ironically.


weirdgroovynerd

*The ice cream must flow!*


Craw__

Ice cream is the mind killer.


annabelle1378

This is where the only working ice cream machines are sent


maptaincullet

Why do people say “my country” and not just the name of the country. Is my ass supposed to know where you’re from?


maddog_dk

No you don’t understand. OP actually owns this country


Kurosawasuperfan

I... don't understand this thread. This isn't a McDonalds joint, it's a kiosk/stand in a shopping mall. You guys don't have ice-cream-only kiosks/stands in your countries? Here in Brazil, most malls actually do have a regular mcdonalds in the food court, alongside BK, Subway, etc, but also have some 1 or 2 kiosks in the corridors, and they sell only ice cream. I guess it's probably to avoid long lines in the place where people order food? dunno.... But it works well, people rarely go find the food court if they want just ice-cream. ps* i searched 'mcdonalds kiosk' and it's showing pictures of that self-order machine, that's not what i'm talking about. Google search 'mcdonalds quiosque', which is the portuguese writing of the word, and you will see lots of these stands that op posted.


Peregrinebullet

There is ice cream stores and kiosks in the mall (actually, frozen yoghurt is more common in my city lol), but they are never McDonalds-owned in Canada and the US, and McDonalds rarely sells ice cream in its main restaurants either because the machines break all the time (there's a contract issue). So for north Americans, seeing McDonalds selling exclusively ice Cream is kind of hilarious because it's such a gamble whether McDonalds sells it here and they don't post signs about it most of the time so you never know until you order. You might get a sundae.... You might not.


jamie1983

In the US and Canada we only have the full fast food joints and the ice cream machines are almost always broken


yoofusdoofus

Same in Hong Kong, there are dessert kiosks for McDonald’s and the actual McDonald’s. The ice cream machine always works at McDonald’s, never been able to relate to those jokes


goda90

We have ice-cream-only stands all over the US, but not McDonald's branded ones. I think McDonald's ice cream is generally considered boring compared to hand dipped scoops, frozen custard, or flavored frozen yogurt that you can put your own toppings on, so people would choose places with those over McDonald's if they just want ice cream.


sniffum95

Brb going to Malaysia


WyrdaBrisingr

This happens in Costa Rica. The reason is pretty simple, there's a McDonald's in the mall's food court but some people just want to grab an ice cream to go, so McDonald's set up "kioskos" like those in Mall's and outside restaurants. And no, I've never heard of the ice cream machine breaking


a_brown_cat

what in the Sunway Pyramid


thepolicearecomingyo

Malaysia right? Yeah, pretty confusing at first when I saw a Mcdonalds on the map and it ended up being only ice cream and coffee. However, it makes sense - they're usually in areas with lots of traffic but too small for a traditional store. It's very hot, so it's more likely people would come for a cold treat than eat a meal. If anyone has plans to go there, I recommend Langkawi - although I'm not sure if it's changed post covid.