McDonald's George St — Restaurant in Sydney

McDonald’s George St - A restaurant that exists.

After having a McDonald’s level supper I decided to add the the already sizeable slew of 3-star reviews, but when you’re a restaurant that barely serves ‘food’, you can’t be complaining.

Let’s address the elephant in the room here. McDonald’s is cheap and relatively tasty (appetising being another can of worms), and for many people living nowadays you can’t afford a nice three-course meal, nor even a few dishes from a local takeout (Thanks, Biden) and thus McDonald’s is really only one’s option for a filling dinner with a high enough calorie count to get one through the night and day to come. Taking that into consideration I really can’t be too harsh on a place that provides valuable items to lower-income families.

Let’s start off with the burger itself, a staple of the Golden Arches, a double cheeseburger, with well, two beef patties and two slices of what can only be described as “American Cheese-Flavoured Product”. (Comes with pickles and ketchup). It prices in around $7, so for a burger it’s quite inexpensive. Taste-wise it’s your standard McDonald’s grease fest, tasting mildly of beef and cheese, but mostly just disappointment and bad health choices. It’s decently filling albeit a tad deflated. Overall it’s quite decent for McDonalds (I cannot stress this enough) and filling, so it’s a cut above the rest of Mickey D’s menu.

Next we move on to the famous, (or infamous if you’re a dietitian) McDonald’s Fries, I bought a medium fry, which I found to be a decent size. While crunchy and generally satisfying I found my serve to be quite inconsistent, with some chips being quite soggy and deflated, and some extremely crunchy and almost too crispy. Some straggled behind on the seasoning front whilst others tended to have too many. I can chalk this up to general employee carelessness (McDonald’s does hire 14 year olds after all) however it would be nice to see some better consistency from a large chain. If one were to purchase them not at peak hour, I would expect the quality control to rise. All in all there are definitely worse chips than these, and realistically you can’t go wrong with McDonald’s fries.

McDonald’s is not known particularly well for their fruit juices and thus I wasn’t expecting much from their orange juice, which seems to come out from a Keri juice brand machine, but tastes infinitesimally worse than bottled Keri. The juice has a decent taste, albeit a little watery, but the horrible and bitter aftertaste that plagues McDonald’s fruit juice haunts the drink like a spectre, a spectre of rotten fruit that reminds me of accidentally biting into a spoilt orange at my grandparents’ house back in Melbourne. Do not buy this drink, small, medium nor large. No matter how or when you drink it it’s terrible, unless for some reason you have a biological condition that forces you to drink the juice of a squeezed orange every minute of your life.

So, after this needlessly long review with paltry visual stimuli and bad jokes, what have we learnt? The same old tale. Fast food really isn’t good food. If someone is reading that’s the type of person to buy McDonald’s for their family as some kind of treat, please take the time to cook for them. I understand the stress and difficulty of fitting it in, but you and your children deserve better and more nutritious food.

For the sake of redundancy, I’ll give it a rating.

Ambience/Service | B (it’s called fast food for a reason) Food | C- Drink(s) |...

Not particularly happy with todays service,

i ordered my usual, two double cheese meals, with no pickles. i then found more pickles in my order than ever seen before. the large sundae was average, filled me up as a small snack, but the meals really left me with an empty belly.

large fries - average, wet and soggy with a nice seasoning, sea salts and other seasonings were originally preferred, but table salt will do for today. now onto the size... i was expecting at least 32 chips, the required amount usually in a large meal, but i was left with only 20... not happy about this, but it is what it is.

double cheese burgers - the patties were slightly burnt, with a crispy and dry crust, yet the inside of the patty was almost wet, and soggy, reminiscent to a wet kitchen sponge. the cheese was undercooked, left a layer of saliva on the roof of my mouth, average burger, not the best I've had.

large chocolate shakes - these were satisfying to me, but I found them too rich and not sweet enough. the layer of chocolate was slightly crisp, not to my usual liking. i have had this drink many times before, and this one lacked personality and flare. next time, put more sweetener, and chocolate.

apple pie - I recently had the unfortunate experience of trying the apple pie from McDonald's, and I must say, it was an absolute disappointment. As a fan of apple pie, I was excited to give it a try, but sadly, it fell far short of my expectations.

Upon receiving the pie, I noticed that the crust lacked any golden brown color and appeared pale and unappetizing. It felt like it had been sitting under a heat lamp for far too long, resulting in a soggy and limp texture. The lack of crispness was a major letdown.

Moving on to the filling, it was equally disappointing. The apples were noticeably mushy and lacked any real flavor. It seemed as though they had been cooked to the point of losing their natural sweetness and becoming a bland mush. The absence of any discernible spices or tangy notes left me wondering if there were any real apples in the pie at all.

To make matters worse, the overall sweetness of the pie was overwhelming. It felt like a sugar bomb, lacking any balance or subtlety. The excessive sweetness only served to further mask any potential apple flavor that may have been present.

Even the presentation of the pie was lackluster. It arrived in a flimsy cardboard sleeve, which did little to protect the pie from getting squished during transportation. This further contributed to the unappetizing appearance of the pie.

Considering the reputation of McDonald's as a fast-food giant, I expected a much better apple pie experience. Unfortunately, this particular offering left me feeling unsatisfied and regretful of my decision to try it.

In conclusion, the apple pie from McDonald's was a complete disappointment. From the lackluster crust to the bland and overly sweet filling, it failed to deliver any semblance of a satisfying apple pie experience. I would highly recommend seeking out other options if you're craving a delicious apple pie.

overall, my experience lacked personality, and really let down the prior strong reputation of macdonalds. i can still see myself coming back, but possibly with better services.

thank you,

review...

We walked in and the stench of urine was way too much to bare, it completely put us off buying our lunch, we walked out holding our noses it was so so bad. It looks nice walking in but we couldn't get out fast enough!! Don't bother clearly they are immune to the smell!

** EDIT 9 Dec 2023 I reported this to McDonalds Head office (no response at all). I also reported this to the City of Sydney, yesterday I received an email from the Snr Environmental Health Officer, Health & Building, Environmental health at the City.

He (name withheld for privacy) has emailed me a prompt response and action taken to fix the issue.

He wrote:

"I called Mc Donalds ahead of carrying out an inspection of 600 George Street. I spoke to the manager who reported that that they were aware of the urine smell issue. Apparently it was a basic cleaning issue. They cleaned and sanitised the toilets and the smell has since gone. I asked why this was allowed to happen, or why did this happen, the manager said that there was an overnight shift where cleaning was not carried out. I advised that Council had received complaints about this and that a couple of random inspections were going to occur to ensure this does not continue.

Thank you for advising"

I am very pleased to see some action was taken and future inspections will be done randomly to keep them within health regulations.

I am concerned that if there was an "overnight shift where cleaning wasn't carried out" that this hasn't been the first time, they are either understaffed or the Manager isn't doing his job well enough to ensure health standards are maintained. I understand this is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week, all the more reason to be absolutely diligent in the sanitation and cleanliness of the store. I think their reason is a cop out and I hope they pull their heads in and get on top of it. I guess this is what happens when you put children in charge so they can pay the lowest wages... Poor form McDonald's but I guess...