Chilean hamburger mystery

Grumpy was recently in Santiago, Chile, and noticing the familiar golden arches close by, decided to have a lunchtime snack. He gave his usual a order of a hamburger, medium fries and zumo de naranja, only to be met with a blank stare with regard to the first named item. Mustering up his best holiday Spanish accent, he tried “hamburguesa”, but again this was followed by blank stares.

The server asked Grumpy in broken English to describe the item. Glancing at the sign above the counter to verify it was indeed a Macdonald’s, this was attempted, but finally it was mutually agreed this was useless from the barrier of language communications and the lack of recognition of the dish by the server.

How could this be? Grumpy has ordered hamburgers in Macs from Scarborough to Shanghai, Bergen to Boston, Bangkok to Talin and a myriad of other far flung locations, and never once has the server even paused.

Returning to his lodgings, the web was duly checked, and the headline pictures show the result. On the left is what appears on the Chilean Mac web site as an apology for a hamburger, and to the right is the item served elsewhere to the world’s other 7 billion inhabitants. No filling. No wonder Grumpy’s description of ingredients other than the meat patty drew blank looks.

A mystery indeed.

Footnote: Grumpy did determine later (following a repeat of this at another branch) that they did not even sell hamburgers sans filling. What ? How can it be a Macdonald’s ?? The world is getting too confusing.