You Want Youtiao With That? McDonald's Tackles the Street Food Favorite

After last year's crackdown on Beijing's streetside businesses and low maintenance vendors, one of the biggest casualties has been simple, affordable, and irresistible street food. While many friends mourn the disappearance of their favorite jianbing vendor, I've always been more partial to wolfing down some yóutiáo (油条) fried dough sticks and soybean milk on a small stool and folding table ... which is also becoming an increasingly rare option in this newly sanitized Beijing.

So on one hungover weekend morning, I was surprised to see a poster for McDonald’s youtiao, which lured me to step inside, where I'd normally turn my nose up and pass the American fast food chain without a second thought. At RMB 6 each, the dough sticks are more than double what you'd typically pay on the street, but the way things have been going (or chai-ing) there might come a day when fast food youtiao is your only option.

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While this is by no means the first localized twist to a foreign fast food menu in China – KFC and Pizza Hut having broken this ground years ago with their egg tart, and shrimp and corn-topped pizzas, respectively – the availability of youtiao at McDonald’s feels less like a novelty. Since first going on offer in 2013, McDonald’s youtiao serves as a familiar option for locals who grew up gobbling down the fried dough sticks at streetside stands, while also being more palatable to foreign patrons who might be adverse to ordering from a humble outdoor stall. While I only happened upon McDonald’s take on this time-honored Chinese favorite recently, the timing couldn't be better, seeing as so many streetside vendors have been swept away by Beijing's recent urban beautification efforts.

But how does the McDonald’s version stack up against the old-fashioned, down-to-earth version from your favorite hutong hawker? Even though it’s an easier sell than other Chinese snacks, it’s nevertheless a tall order for the fast food giant to live up to, because seeing that dough sizzling before your eyes, not to mentioning inhaling the aroma, is a big part of the experience. The burger flippers at McDonald’s do their best, getting it ready behind the counter, out of sight, and sliding it over on your tray. Aside from that typically bland corporate prep style, the McDonald’s dough sticks also stand apart from what I’m used to because theirs are drier and firmer in texture, along with having a saltier aftertaste than the sweet, puffy, airy, and slightly oily youtiao from my local seller, or even the versions sold at Chinese chains like Jindingxuan.

Despite defying my (admittedly limited, laowai-inclined) expectations of what youtiao should be, I couldn’t deny that McDonald's “Asian fried dough sticks” were filling, and satisfying in terms of flavor and texture, especially when you dunk them in soy milk (the Beijing everyman’s version of a Bostonian dabbing his donut in Dunkin Donuts coffee).

I’ll always prefer buying fresh off the street (as questionable as the seller’s adherence to health codes may be), but in a pinch when you're feeling peckish, you could do worse than the McDonald’s take on this Chinese breakfast classic. Best of all, it blows Pizza Hut’s more out-there "corn and prawns on pizza" ploy out of the water. Now if only Burger King started slinging jianbing, and KFC put a Kentucky twist on roujiamo, then we’d have enough options for a Sinicized fast food buffet which would be greasy and calorific enough to quell any hangover, if not our nostalgia pains for Beijing's livelier streetside era.

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Photo: news.cnnb.com.cn