A Paris McDonald's. Photo: Let Ideas Compete/flickr

Mona Lisa, meet Le Big Mac.

Lovers of French culture and art snobs are buzzing with disapproval after McDonald's confirmed its plans to open a restaurant within the Louvre in Paris, according to the Daily Telegraph.

To celebrate its 30th anniversary in France, McDonald's will open its 1,142nd French restaurant a few yards away from the iconic art museum in Carrousel du Louvre, an underground shopping center within the Louvre complex.

"I'm not against eating in a museum but McDonald's is hardly the height of gastronomy," Didier Rykner, head of the Art Tribune Web site told the Telegraph. "Today McDonald's, tomorrow low-cost clothes shops."

Are you a franchise fanatic? A connoisseur of combo meals? Take our fast food quiz and test your knowledge of burgers and beyond.

Do you remember the old McDonald's commercials for the Big Mac? They had that chant/rap about the special sauce and all that. Well, Micky D's wants to update that marketing campaign and they need your help.

As reported on Fast Food Critic, McDonald's wants you to enter a contest updating the Big Mac chant. You still have to use the special sauce, pickles, lettuce, etc, but they have all kinds of beats and samples you can use at their MySpace page. You can also get all the rules and more info there, too.

Just send in a video or audio tape of your remix, and be chosen by a panel of judges to be a semi-finalist, and your chant will be voted on by the public on July 22. The commercial will then air by the end of July.

If you live in a developing country, that is: In the U.S., land o'plenty, so the golden arches will always remain a convenience as a drive-through window, but in cities that are congested and land is scarce, McDonald's has taken to delivery.

Where would you have to go to get your Big Mac and fries delivered right to your door with a delivery charge of anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar? Ronald McDonald commissions fleets of delivery people in cars or on motorbikes in cities like Manila, Taipei, Cairo, for a total of about 25 cities, with a half dozen more in the works.

Really, I think L.A. is congested enough of a city that McDonald's delivery could work here. I can't tell you how many times I've woken up on a weekend morning craving an Egg McMuffin, but was a little too, uh, "dehydrated" to get in the car and get to a McDonald's before 10:30AM!

Over the past few years McDonald's has faced some pretty tough criticism about the quality of their food. In fact, the movie 'Super Size Me' single-handedly changed how many of us view the fast food giant - or more accurately, the fast food industry as a whole. Now, in what has to be an attempt at clearing their name from some of the negative publicity, McDonald's has hired six "Quality Correspondent" mothers to visit the supplier facilities, restaurants, kitchens, and attend development meetings - then blog about their experiences.

Really though, it seems pretty transparent. Can you honestly imagine any other outcome from this than the mothers going to visit the various facilities, seeing everyone on their best behavior with everything running smoothly, then undoubtedly rave about how wonderful McDonald's really is? I'd say ask any 15-year old who has ever worked there if you really want to know what goes on.

Personally, I'd love to just see them finally admit what they really are and roll with it. Stop trying to convince us you are healthy. Admit we probably shouldn't eat there five times a week, but it is a good place to indulge every once in a while. I love stopping in at McDonald's once every month or so to enjoy something a little sinful, something that isn't good for me, something that cures my craving for grease and fat and calories. I don't want their salads or their wraps - I want a Big Mac. I want fries with extra salt and McChicken Sauce on the side for dipping. I want a Sausage and Egg McMuffin with TWO sides of hash brown patties. I just don't want it everyday.

If they would just admit that they were a little bit naughty, I'd love them just a little bit more.

I was really planning to try that KFC Famous Bowl, but not after seeing these pics.

It's a funny experiment from The West Virginia Surf Report. They take several ads from fast food companies such as McDonald's, KFC, Arby's, Subway, Burger King, and Wendy's and compare the pics to the actual food they went and bought. The results are, while not exactly surprising, certainly interesting.

Most of the foods look really smushed and look like they were put together very quickly. But back to that KFC Famous Bowl. In the ad you can see all the individual items in there, the chicken, the cheese, the corn, the gravy. The actual product (above) looks like dog food sold on the planet Krypton. Gah!

Today's Hamburger of the Day is the second to come to us from Japan. The first was the MOS Burger. In the interest of fairness, I thought I'd give Japan's No. 1 burger chain a little time, too. Well, not really, I'm only writing about McDonald's Tamago Double Mac because I happened upon it on Will Work For Food.

I don't know if there's a Big Mac type jingle for this protein-packed burger, but if there is, I'd like think it goes something like this: "Two all beef patties, cheese, bacon, tamago, special sauce on a sesame seed bun." Hmm...that doesn't seem to scan as well as the original lyric, probably because there are no veggies. In this case, the tamago takes the form of a fried egg. Seems Marshall Astor isn't the only one out there who likes to top ground beef with fried eggs. For the record, the Tamago Double Mac is only slightly less excessive than Chef Astor's Mega Hamburger One. [via Tastespotting]

If you are looking for ways to beat your lunchtime fast food cravings (and stories about E. coli aren't enough), take a look at Court TV's list of the ten worst things found in fast food meals. Since it's Court TV, you can guess that they're not talking about trans-fats, either. Their list includes the following items, though you'll have to check out their list for the full details on each item, as well as info on any subsequent lawsuits:

• In 1995 an Alabama man found a condom in a burger at a McDonald's
• In 2004, an Ohio man found some skin (part of a thumb) in and Arby's sandwich.
• In 2005, a man found the whole finger - a different one - in some Kohl's frozen custard.
• The employees at an Oregon Jack in the Box, "for their sole amusement," added a variety of disturbing things (acid, soap, phlegm, human hair and staples) the burgers of at least one couple.
• A Virginia Beach firefighter found two used bandages Quarter Pounder at McDonald's in 1994 (My roommate in college found one in the pizza at the cafeteria, but that didn't make the list).
• A Tennessee man (allegedly) bit into a hypodermic needle in a Big Mac in 2000.

There are four more disturbing "found" items on CourtTV's list, but, frankly, six is really more than enough for me. And you can bet that I'll be looking closely the next time I hit the drive-thru on a road trip. Better safe than sorry!

Despite the fact that McDonalds has been receiving an extra-large serving of criticism recently, it hasn’t discouraged the company from doing what it does best: making burgers. While some customers turn away, others still look for size and value in their fast food and the new Bigger Big Mac, due to be released soon in the UK, will give them both. The burger is a full 40% larger than the regular Big Mac and, base on that, can be expected to pack at least 700 calories. It is a limited edition burger that is being targeted at football fans, so the release coincides with the 2006 World Cup. Spain and Germany are also likely to see the release of this bigger Mac.

[Image MegaStar]

If you missed the opportunity to flip burgers in high school, you can have a second chance without quitting your day job. Alternatively, you can flip burgers while you "work" at your day job. Just use the McDonald's employee simulator. Start your day off with the ringing of your alarm clock, and click your way through your routine: breakfast, driving to work and, of course, making the burgers.  If you're having fun, you can even work overtime for an extra $5! The game isn't as riveting as Diner Dash, but then again, probably neither is working at McDonald's - especially when you don't get to interact with the customers to break up the monotony.

Here's an incentive for playing, though: If you make it to the end of the game, you'll learn that McDonald's employees have scary dreams.

[Thanks to McAuliflower for the tip!]

I believe that this photo of a  bus stop billboard advertisement for McDonald's was taken in Turkey. While a bus stop seems to be as good a place as any to put advertising, this one is a tad unnerving since it is designed to look like a McDonald's counter, complete with friendly looking employees waiting to take your order. If they added some sort of french fry scent dispenser to the structure, it wouldn't be surprising if at least one or two unsuspecting passers-by actually thought that they were looking into one of the fast food franchises. Is this really more persuasive than, say, an ad that features a Big Mac or fries?

[Image Bigumagu.com]

McDonald’s debuted its new nutritionally conscious labels today at its franchises in Turin, Italy. The nutritional information of the foods is printed in easy to read bar charts with the fat, calorie, carbohydrate and protein content clearly listed, along with information about how their values compare to the recommended daily amounts. Not only will the release of this new packaging improve the perception of McDonalds as a restaurant option that can be included in the diet of a healthy lifestyle, but the 26 outlets in Turin should benefit. The 2006 Winter Olympics, which begin on February 10th, have attracted huge crowds to Italy, many of whom might be more inclined to visit the fast food restaurant to see the new wrapping first hand.

By the end of the year, McDonalds plans to have the new packaging at all of its outlets worldwide. The packaging will be released across the US beginning in February. You can take a sneak peek of the packaging at Fast Food News.

 
SWAMP is short for Studies of Work Atmospheres and Mass Production. The group's stated goal is "to find creative expression within elements of culture that are inherently counter-creative." Of the many darlings of consumer culture that the group touches on again and again is fast food. One of their most outlandish and amazing projects, the Meat Helmet, came in response to McDonald's recent "adult happy meal" that came with a pedometer. SWAMP's Meat Helmet hooks the user up to a series of pneumatic 'air muscles' that force the wearer to make chewing motions. Based on the amount of calories entered into the helmet's CPU (say, 560 for a Big Mac), the 'muscles' pump the appropriate amount of chewing to work off the meal. They estimate that chewing burns roughly 70 calories per hour, so a solid eight-hour jaw flappin' workout should work off that Big Mac. The SWAMP site contains more pictures and a pretty slick video presentation, too.