There isn’t anything too interesting/unique at McDonald’s in Italy, though they do have something called “Le Ricche” fries, which is basically just a plate of fries with cheese sauce on them. You can choose between regular cheddar, and hot cheese. I went with the latter, though I have to admit that there’s something vaguely unappetizing about the phrase “hot cheese.”
Yeah, it turns out the whole thing was vaguely unappetizing. Actually, no: not vaguely.
I should note that I’m not a snob about cheese sauce — I actually really like the neon orange sauce they serve at the movies. But this stuff? It was vile. It didn’t help that it was cold and congealed; it was unpleasantly thick and gluey, with a salty, acrid flavour that I guess was supposed to be spiciness? It tasted like they melted down a mostly empty bottle of cayenne pepper and then poured the plasticky goo over stale fries. It was horrible.
Since there wasn’t anything else particularly interesting on the menu, I went with the one of their burgers — the 1955 burger, which was clearly the better of the two in that it wasn’t completely awful. It had bacon and caramelized onion and a bunch of other stuff, and it wasn’t too bad, but there was so much ketchup that I couldn’t taste anything else.
I’m not gonna lie: between Spain and this, my enthusiasm to try McDonald’s at every country I visit has been significantly dampened. Get it together, McDonald’s, jeez.