McDonald's Australia Fries Review: Aussie Way of "Chips"

This week, we're in Australia, the home of cute koalas, tall kangaroos and "fish n chips" - apparently, "chips" in Australia means "fries". Given how widespread fries are in this country, we wanted to start with our global benchmark McDonald's. We were seriously curious: Would the fries be better than America? How do they compare to those from Japan and Korea? The answers surprised us. Here is our review of McDonald's fries in Australia.

McDonald's at Circular Quay, Sydney.

Texture (4/10)

Surprisingly, there was absolutely no crisp nor crunch, and the fries were floppy, with barely any stuffing. The fries felt soggy and weak, and it was like chewing potatoes that had had a fight with the employees behind the counter. The texture reminded us a little bit of those from Korea, similar amounts of flop and unsatisfying amounts of innards. You could tell that the employees did not treat the fries with care as many of our fries were bent completely like fishing poles. Given that McDonald's is known for providing a consistent quality no matter where in the world, we were very disappointed with the Australian fries and their texture.

The color seemed a bit too yellow, indicating that it could've been fried more. The sticks were just "weak" overall.

Flavor (6/10)

The fries were pretty well salted, maybe even too much salt on some parts, which was great. As the standard McDonald's recipe goes, there was no extra seasoning and the fries weren’t greasy nor used any unique oils. The flavor was exactly your standard McDonald's fries except for the abundance of salt. Now one unique mishap, and we really think it was just a mistake, was that there were no ketchup in the takeout brown bag. This caught us by surprise because the McDonald's fries were designed to be consumed with ketchup and thus in America, ketchup packets are inserted by default. We see this as a critical miss, and we did not have the willpower to walk back just for ketchup. We are scoring this giving the benefit of doubt.

Shape (4/10)

Only about half of the fries were a good long length, while the others were much shorter. We typically expect a much higher ratio of longer sticks. Also, the fries were on the thinner side, and the lack of stuffing made them even worse. The fries bent over like canes and they were hard to eat because of that. Oh, there wasn't even any ketchup included so our standard evalution of the sticks being able to hold up the weight of the dip didn't happen. Again, these fries definitely are shaped like your standard McDonald's variant. And we are giving a lot of benefit of doubt. But definitely, these do not fare well compared to their American counterparts.

The fries may look standard but they are thin and weak. Look at those that bend over their own weight.

Presentation (4/10)

Unlike the American McDonald's, in Australia the fries were served in the classic red carton with the yellow arches in the middle. However, the actual amount and the way they were served was subpar at best. The short fries stopped at three quarters of the height of the carton, which we didn’t appreciate because not only was it so little, the presentation did not look right. We looked deep into the takeout bag to see if some of the sticks had spilled and that was not case. So McDonald's genuinely did not pack the crisps to the classical overflowing brim. Even after 2 large cartons, we were still hungry for more. We were not sure if this was just the busy employees being careless but we do not think this level of presentation should not be acceptable at a McDonald's.

There are no fries spilled in the bag. Look at how much space is left in the carton. Where are the long golden sticks peeking out, laying on the back sleeve?

Experience (5/10)

It was a standard experience, and there was nothing special to take note of. The employees were normal, the burgers paired as expected with the fries. The experience was pretty much identical as America, but just in Australia. Due to the location in Circular Quay, where we believe will have a lot of foot traffic, we saw many self-ordering machines. Though we aren’t disappointed, we were somewhat hoping for something a bit more local, like in Japan. Perhaps we should've tried the Frozen Fanta?

Digital payements seems to be lot more prevalent in Australia.

Texture	4
Flavor	6
Shape	4
Presentation	4
Experience	5
Overall	4.6 / 10

Conclusion

Although Australia is a great spot for zoos, wildlife, beaches and fun, McDonald's isn't a specialty for fries, or "crisps" as the locals say it. Every aspect of the fries were mediocre or worse. Though the fries were not as bad as those of McDonald's in Korea or Japan, we could not help but feel disappointed. We were not able to observe much effort, especially in the presentation. We suggest that if you ever go to Australia, go for the koalas and the kangaroos, but feel free to skip the fries from McDonald's.

The kitchen design is exactly the same. The green color comes from the Grinch promotion, which makes it look a bit off given we were looking for the McDonald's red.