YeinJee's Asian blog

Asian Culture, Lifestyle and Entertainment

American food

First McDonald’s in Moscow in 1990

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Old video showing the long queue on the opening day (Jan 31, 1990) of the first – and back then the world’s largest – McDonald’s restaurant in former Soviet Union.

The restaurant was operated by McDonald’s Canada instead of the American HQ, probably to avoid sensitivity issue as the Cold War has just ended.

McDonald’s also opened its first outlet in mainland China in October the same year.

Subway is world’s largest restaurant chain

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Subway sandwichSubway has surpassed McDonald’s as the world’s largest restaurant chain in terms of units. Subway had 33,749 restaurants around the globe at the end of 2010, while McDonald’s had 32,737.

Subway is not popular in Asia though, only 1000+ of its outlets are in this region, less than 5% of its total units which are spread across 95 countries.

Its spokesperson has named India and China among its high growth nations, but it remains to be seen if they could survive in long run. Culturally Asians have yet to accept sandwich or burger as staple food.

And the idea of eating healthily – which Subway is famous for – works only in a few places in this part of the world. Pricing and taste prevail.

Cold Stone Creamery, East Asian Style

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Cold Stone Creamery, an ice-cream parlor franchise from Arizona, USA, is known for its mix-ins and lively service culture where the workers would sing a tune or two when tipped by the customers.

Tipping is not common in Asia though; so I guess the staff would probably sing along whenever they feel like it. Sharing some videos of the staff in action from Cold Stone Creamery outlets in Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan…

Japan – Forget ice cream, the girls are champs…

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