Canadian on international McDonald's tasting adventure

James McGowan really likes McDonald's -- so much that he's travelling the globe to review its menu items in every country he visits.

Originally from Amherstburg, Ont., McGowan, 28, started blogging about eating as a solo traveller several years ago.

But he said the biggest reactions came from his reviews of odd McDonald's offerings he'd find in faraway places. So in 2011, he launched a new blog -- travellingmcds.com -- dedicated only to the fast food chain.

While he's a fan of Mickey D's, and impressed by its adaptable menu to serve the tastes of different cultures, he can still be critical. Not everything is a winner.

"Some people say I might be overly critical with some of my reviews, saying it's only 'just' McDonald's," he said from Singapore, his latest stop. "I enjoy (and give a perfect 5/5) for items I really enjoy. I give more weight to something that is really unique or quirky.

"I enjoy reviewing those kind of items that you just wouldn't expect to find at a McDonald's in Canada."

Some of his favourite finds, in fact, are those most Canadian fans of McDonald's would find foreign.

"The best item Canadians might have never heard of are the savoury McDonald's pies," McGowan said. "We all grew up eating McDonald's apple pies. But around the world you could try pies like McDonald's spinach, curry crab, taro, red bean, tuna, cream stew and many more.

"These pies are often pretty good," he said. "But not always."

In fact, McDonald's has made some wild misses, he said.

Most of its fry seasonings -- or "shakers," as he calls them on the blog -- are horrible, McGowan says.

These are seasoning packs meant to be shaken in bags of french fries to season them to local tastes.

"It's something of a recent trend," he said, adding they started off in Asia, but have recently popped up in a few European McDonald's.

"The bad shakers are some of the worst tastes you can imagine: butter soy sauce from Japan is my all-time least favourite."

He's also no fan of the salted egg durian mooncake from Thailand.

"That gives me nightmares."

McChocolate Potato -- Sapporo, Japan, February 2016

My first fry was one that had a near full coating of both sauces. After the initial fear of "is this going to be terrible?" the flavours hit me one at a time, the first was the dark chocolate, which as expected was a bit on the milky side, and wasn't at all bitter. Then you taste the traditional fry flavours including the salt, which is a big factor at play here. The last flavour you get is the white chocolate. The white chocolate was probably the biggest let-down here as it didn't really taste that much like white chocolate, it was still creamy, it just didn't have the bite that white chocolate is supposed to have.

McPizza Pepperoni Burger -- United Kingdom, November 2014

After I finished half the burger, I ended up taking off the rest of the beef, and simply having a pepperoni sandwich for lunch.

Wasabi Ebi Burger -- Singapore, November 2014

The Ebi Burger included the same whole-shrimp patty that I quite enjoyed last year. The shrimp were still surprisingly large, and they used the same decent carrot/cabbage veg mix which is appearing on burgers more and more in Singapore. But naturally, the biggest change was the wasabi sauce. The wasabi sauce was stronger than I had anticipated. It wasn't knock-your-socks-off nose-burning hot, but it was clearly wasabi flavoured.

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