I’ve told you before that my secret ambition in life is to eat McDonald’s in every country I visit, right? Yeah, I’d like to make sure that I eat it on every continent. I know that’s a lofty goal, I’d have to figure out a way to travel to Antarctica and bring the McDonald’s with me…I’ve heard the closest McD’s is in Argentina and I imagine by the time that I get the food to Antarctica it probably won’t taste so good anyway. But I digress. This is about McDonald’s in Turkey, specifically McDonald’s in Istanbul.

First, J woke up early and headed out to get us McDonald’s breakfast. It was about a fifteen minute walk from the flat we had rented, but it took him about an hour and a half to get there, get food and get back. Why might you ask? Well the signs said they opened at 7. So J was there at quarter past 7 and they didn’t open until nearly 8. This happened quite a bit to us in Istanbul and we thought perhaps the clocks on our Iphones had adjusted to wrong time zone (as the host of the flat we’d rented was nearly two hours late meeting us the previous day! Ooops!) But it seems they just do things on their own time in Istanbul, which wasn’t exactly new, coming from the Middle East where they only hurry when they are driving.

In any case he brought back delicious McDonald’s breakfast, yum! Hashbrowns and Egg McMuffins (well a sausage egg mcmuffin for J) But sadly, no biscuits available here either. Is the only place they serve biscuits for breakfast at McD’s the US?! Sad.

We ate at McDonald’s again at the Sirkeci tram station. This time we got to test out the whole “Yes, I’d like a cheeseburger without meat” thing. It went surprisingly well! The young man at the counter thought it was quite hilarious that I didn’t want any burger on my burger and laughingly went explain this to the folks at the grill who made the sandwich up just right, the first time, yay! They all laughed as they passed it along to me and we headed upstairs to enjoy the food and the view.

Overall, the bun and cheese tasted just like it was supposed to. The potatoes for the french fries tasted like home as well, but the ketchup was a tad too sweet.

The COOLEST thing we discovered about McDonald’s in Istanbul though was, wait for it…they deliver!! Yeah, there was a portly man on a little motorbike outside making deliveries!  Check out his striped shirt! Doesn’t he look a lil like the Hamburgerler? C’mon! You know he does!

Verdict: So far, McDonald’s in Turkey has probably tasted the most like McDonald’s in the US.  Except that pesky ketchup. But I’d have to say that the breakfast seems to be pretty consistent across the globe. Except for the absence of the delicious biscuits Who can I contact at corporate to work on that!?
Happy Eating!

~Nikki