In this episode we talk about fast food in the U.K. A lot of it is just the U.S. fast food that’s made its way over here actually. You have McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell, Five Guys, Subway, Papa John’s, Domino’s Pizza, among others. Actually I don’t think I even know of any UK-only fast food chains. Let’s get into the differences between these chains here in the U.K. and back home in the U.S.

One of the major differences about fast food here is the super high-tech ordering and menu touch screens that you can order your food from. When we moved here two years ago we found them everywhere. I think in the U.S. they are starting to show up with all the clamoring to raise the minimum wage. Another difference is that in the U.K. there is really modern looking seating. They often have seating bars with iPads that you can play with or entertain yourself while you’re eating. Behind the counter is an array of flat screen TVs instead of menus that you would have to manually change. Lillian actually finds these annoying because she has a hard time making a decision about anything, really, but especially about food. If the menu changes every 5 minutes, she ends up getting lost. We also found that the food tastes different here than in the U.S. I think this has something to do with the higher level of restrictions on the kinds of ingredients you can use here, cooking oils especially.

In the takeaway category the U.S. has mainly Chinese food. In the U.K. there’s that but there is also Indian takeaway, which is much more popular. They often call them curry houses. In fact, people here say that curry is a British food. The Chinese takeaway menu here is different than the American Chinese takeaway menu. We don’t eat fast food very often but we do find it interesting how fancy it is and also how expensive it is. It’s much more expensive than you would expect relative to the US, but still relative to other restaurants here in the UK it is a lot less expensive.

We went to a KFC recently in order to show you guys what we just talked about. One huge difference between KFC in the States and here is that they don’t serve mashed potatoes! Also, fries come with everything. No biscuits either–it’s crazy! I really miss mashed potatoes, and biscuits. Besides all that, what we really miss is Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A is probably too Christian to be in England. PEACE! What they do have to bring from America is good customer service, which is hard to find here. I think that’s a whole other video, or a whole 10 part series!