Come fly with me: For shake's sake

When I walked past a McDonald's in London last week, a place I never even walk into, Sydney came to mind and I laughed. I told you about the main city a few weeks ago and about seeing the main spots in one day, but what I didn't mention is that I had been staying in the suburbs for a good few days before that. And suburbs would be fine if there had been good restaurants and cafés to go to, but it was difficult to see anything apart from McDonald's ... oh, I shouldn't forget the McCafés!

I won't disclose the name of the area I was in — a little embarrassing that I was even there on my second visit to Australia (the first was more than ten years ago), but I was flabbergasted at the obsession with this global fast-food chain. And with hardly anything else around, save a few small shopping malls where all shops and restaurants closed very early in the evening, I ended up resorting to, or perhaps, indulging in vanilla milkshakes, something I used to love in McDonald's but I dare not have now. I lie.

I actually had a craving for McD's vanilla milkshake in India a month or two ago, but having gone to a couple of the stores in Mumbai, I only found strawberry and chocolate milkshake, or their milkshake machine was broken.

And so, as with anything you can't get, the longing for this milkshake became stronger until it was hidden behind all the other thoughts and desires in my mind; and then, in Dubai recently, having entered the chain yet again, this time because I happened to be with someone who wanted McD's full of promising fat and carbs chips, I asked for the vanilla shake … you know, just for the sake of it. And guess what, they had run out!

So, of course, in Sydney some two weeks later, with nothing else in sight, we did go to McDonald's, and it popped in mind once again. So when I asked for the vanilla shake, they handed it over. After all those months, from Mumbai to Dubai and then to Sydney, I finally had it in my hand and drank it with the utmost satisfaction.

Full fat? Well of course it was!

— For more from Meera Ashish log on to www.meera-ashish.com