Opinion: Let’s Take A Breath To Talk About The New McDonald’s Burger And Why It Makes No Sense

Last year, we talked about how fast-food brands come to India and change their menus to suit the local tastes and flavours. But in the last week, McDonald’s took that quite literally. And people everywhere are extremely confused by this development and don’t really know how to feel about it. In fact, we’re not even sure how we feel about it.

It’s one thing to modify already existing burgers and meals to suit the Indian palette, like the McAloo Tikki for example, but to completely introduce a new item onto the menu might be a little adventurous and also a little insane? And it’s not even something totally normal, it’s a Dosa Burger. We can understand the appeal of an Anda Bhurji Burger, but what were they thinking when they introduced a Dosa Burger. As you can imagine, social media has been flooded with questions, memes, cartoons and the like trying to figure out what this Dosa Burger looks like.

Taking things too far

Embracing South Indian culture and food is great and using one of India’s most popular breakfasts as a base and inspiration is also great, but this feels like a little too on the nose. In all the food hybrids that have been come out in the world, this might just be the strangest of them all. McDonald’s has always been popular for their breakfast menu with egg and muffins and what have you, but this is a whole new kind of menu that even we don’t properly know how to understand or process.

Many folks have reviewed this burger since it was released in Mumbai last week and unsurprisingly, they were not impressed. First of all, it’s not called a Dosa burger, if that’s what you go in there looking for. It’s called a “Dosa Masala Brioche”, which makes it very complicated for just about everyone and the patty is made using the same recipe that is used for the masala in a masala dosa. And if that’s not enough, it’s served with molaga podi, which for us South Indians is a staple with our dosas and idlis.

But before we go anywhere, if you’re wondering why it’s called a Brioche and not a burger, it’s because they’ve used French bread? Yes, we are also very pleasantly confused and surprised by this development. Reviewers are comparing it to a duller version of the McAloo Tiki which wasn’t a big hit to begin with, but is definitely the most popular of McDonald’s vegetarian burgers in the country.

At some point, restaurants need to take a step back and rethink their decision to do certain things that are clearly not going to go well for them. Because there is no world in which this kind of burger would actually get great reviews or positive comments. And as a South Indian, I don’t want my ideal breakfast turned into a fast-food gimmick either!

Featured image credit: Quartz India