Japan - McDonalds "Aussie Deli Sandwich"

28 Sep 2012

McDonald's Japan has decided to bring the rest of the world to Japan via fast food. Well, not the whole world. For the burger joint's latest campaign, it's only been France, India, and Australia.

As Snacktaku's embedded emissary in Asia, I take snack sampling very seriously. Snackology is an extremely important field, and one must continuously consume greasy or sweet (or both) treats in the name of study and research. That said, I missed the French sandwich and ate only half of the Indian one (my kid ate the other half; it was okay!).

But I got the whole Australian sandwich to myself. Thing is, it didn't look very "Australian". And I say this as someone who has seen an Australian.

To be fair, the other sandwiches were about as culturally accurate as "It's a Small World" at Disneyland. Before we dig into what would make this sandwich (or burger) more Australian, let's get a lay of the land—er, plastic tray.

The Aussie Deli is how McDonald's Japan sees sandwiches in Australia. Okay, we got that! That's the snack concept, or as I like to say, the "snackcept". Unwrapping the sandwich reveals a bun, lettuce, bright orange cheese, and pastrami. There's some sort of vegetable relish and mustard.

Okay, let's stop right there.

Full size

While being an embedded snack emissary in Asia has opened up a realm of tasty treats, it has left a large void in a basic food group: the sandwich group. Japan is especially bad at sandwiches. The country does bread very, very well. Likewise, Japanese burgers can be triumphant. Sandwiches, however? They can get downright shocking, causing one to suffer from lack of proper sandwich nourishment.

So keeping this culture construct (snackstruct, rather) in mind, the Aussie Deli, as average and pedestrian as it truly is, actually comes up a winner. In Japan, for the sandwich starved, who don't care about what a real Australian sandwich or hamburger looks like, here's a passable pastrami sandwich that should've been called "McGood Enough." Now that would've been wild.

Source: Argentine Beef Packers S.A.

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