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| McDonald's Japan Minestrone Soup - February 2016 |
Consumed on 19 February 2016
Location - Aeon Supermarket, Yunokawa, Hakodate, Japan
Price - 290JPY = $2.54USD
Calories - 66kcal
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| McDonald's Japan 2016 Minestrone Soup Receipt |
I had half expected that this 4th and final review from Japan was never going to happen. The Wife and I spent a little over 2 weeks in Japan hopping around the island of Hokkaido and I only found the Minestrone Soup on my final afternoon in Japan. The
Hokkaido Burger,
McChoco Potato and the
Cream Stew Pie were all promotions that launched only a few days before our arrival at the beginning of February, but Minestrone Soup was still one promotion left over from January that was being promoted on the McDonald's Japan official website. I had visited 4 branches in Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, as well as one more in downtown Hakodate, and none carried the soup. One branch in Sapporo gave me false hope by still having the poster of the soup on the wall, but when I attempted to place my order, they sold me that they were sold out. Our last 3 days in Japan were in the Yunokawa Onsen area, and I FINALLY found the soup still being sold inside a McDonald's that was hidden away inside of a supermarket food court. It took me a good 20 minute walk from the spa we were staying at, and I guess since it was a small town, as well as a hidden away branch, meant that they hadn't yet completed their stock. Had I known what I would have ended up with, I wouldn't have either spend the money, nor the effort..
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| McDonald's AEON Yunokawa Branch |
This "bowl" of soup had to have been the worst value I've ever had at McDonald's anywhere in the world. I've had expensive McDonald's meals before, I've had small, seemingly overpriced meals before, but this has to take the cake for poor value. When I was served the I let out an audible laugh since I actually thought I might have been a joke. The "bowl" probably consisted of maybe 2cm worth of soup, which was at most 100mL worth of soup, not even a full cup worth. The photos don't really do it justice for how little soup was served. The plastic bowl, which caused me to cringe a bit thinking of the potential for leeching when filled with a boiling hot soup, looks wider than it was.
If we are to use McDonald's food for units of measurement, it couldn't have been wider in diameter than a small cheese burger, and to make things worse, it wasn't even 1/3 full. The soup itself didn't taste all that bad to be honest, the broth tasted no different to a bowl of condensed Campbells minestrone, but I will admit that the veggies inside were slightly bigger than a Campbells can of soup. Maybe because I only had so little, but I didn't think the broth was overly salty once I finished the entire bowl. The ingredient list on the McDonald's website indicated that carrot, onion, cabbage, celery and potatoes came from Japan. The wheat and barely came from Italy, and the tomatoes used for the broth came from the US.
I counted, and I ended up with 6 spoonfuls of soup that had veg, and about the same left over for the remaining broth. It was served hot, but not hot enough to really warm me up from the cold Hokkaido winter. 290Y for the tiny amount served it was by far the most painful purchase I've ever made at McDonald's, as I honestly felt cheated paying for something so meagre. If you ordered a meal, you could add this on for an additional 100JPY which just MIGHT be OK, but on it's own, it needed to be at least 3-4X the size.
Rating - 1.5/5
McDonald's Japan was also selling the Cream Corn soup that McDonald's Taiwan has on it's regular menu. I've
reviewed that before, and since the ingredients were corn and water, so it's not that difficult to figure out how that one would taste.
