04-010 Filet-O-Fish copycat

04-010
Filet-O-Fish copycat

Sometimes, eating fast food can be a cultural impact.

First is the local menu. Do you know McDonald’s in India are vegetarian? And Whoppers in India are made by mutton, not beef. No pork is used in the Sausage McMuffin selling in Singapore, because it needs to be halal. You need to pay extra for a happy meal toy in McDonald’s in Germany. However, instead of those cheap plastic toys, their happy meal toys are wooden. Also, KFC in China sells duck.

McDonald’s in India. Everything is vegetarian.

Double Mutton Whopper in India’s Burger King.

Apart from food, more funny questions are out there. Why does Pizza Hut not do well in England? Why KFC does much better than McDonald’s in mainland China, but not in Hongkong? With an average salary of US$1000 per month, why you can never find a seat in Starbucks in Beijing?

Dig deep in these questions can broaden your eyesight.

Hamburger is a foreign food here. We didn’t even have this word in our language. Then all in a sudden, it came our first McDonald’s in 1975. It soon became popular. Very very popular indeed! We did not only learn what burger is but also what “Fast-Food” means.

Businessmen are smart. Soon, many fast-food copycats popped up from nowhere and flooded the market. People start selling hamburgers, with their own interpretations. Pickles gone. Ketchup replaced by mayonnaise. And beef burger became pork burger or chicken burger or a mixture of chicken, beef or pork.

These lasted until late 90s. As Hong Kong is getting more and more international, we now know what a burger should be. Many new burger restaurants set up in the recent decade. Bosses are all local Hongkongers but they sell very authentic burgers.

Localized burgers are almost gone with only a few shops remain. Some people do look for them as a memory of their childhood.

Recently, I visited one in an old district of Hongkong that still sell localized burgers. I bought a Filet-O-fish copycat from there. And at the same time, I bought an authentic Filet-O-fish from a McDonald’s just nearby. Let’s see how different they look. 

A small takeaway restaurant in Tin Wan, an old district of Hong Kong

The restaurant is called “Lok Fu Eatery”. Size is very small without any seats.

Manuals are hanged on the wall in Chinese language only.
It sells Hamburger and Filet-O-Fish.
I ordered a Filet-O-Fish copycat, with a cup of hot coffee.
It is $23 in total, which is a little bit less than US$3.

It happens that there is just a McDonald’s round the corner.

I bought the same thing, a Filet-O-Fish breakfast set from McDonald’s.
It costs me $20 only.

McDonald’s uses paper bag for their burgers. Only plastic bag is used for the coffee.

I don’t think I need to tell you what a Filet-O-Fish is.
It tastes the same as anywhere in the world.

The “Lok Fu” copycat uses plastic bags, 3 in total.
One for the burger, one for the coffee and one to hold them all.

The bread is thicker than the original’s and has sesames on it.

Tartar sauce is replaced by mayo.
No cheese inside. And no chopped onion.

But the fillet is made by real fish meat,
unlike that machine pressed fish patty in real Filet-O-Fish. 

Conclusions

Instead of machine pressed fish patty, you got real fish fillet in the copycat. The fillet itself tastes much better than McDonald’s. But I need to admit. I was abused by McDonald’s for too long. A copycat without chopped onion simply goes nowhere.

McDonald’s won.

Go back to the Lobby ...