Parlez Vous Anglais ?

So I was reading Swathi's blog and she was mentioning how McDonalds looks so out of place in Europe. I totally agree with her. McDonalds sticks out like a sore thumb amongst all those quaint old buildings and streets. I totally hated it when I was there a couple of years back. At least I used to hate it. Until this one day...

I walked into this French restaurant on the outskirts of Paris (I think it was somewhere near La Defense). I was starving. I looked at the menu and (of course) everything was written in French. The cute waitress unfortunately shook her head at my "Parlez vous Anglais?" ("Do you speak English?") question. So I resigned myself to picking out a random item off the menu.

There was one item whose description included two words I recognized, "Boeuf" and something to the order of "Marinate" or "Spice". So I said to myself "What the heck, I'm fed up of eating spiceless French food for the last one month. Lets try out this marinated-beef thingy".

The cute waitress comes back after a while, puts down a plate in front of me, points to it and says "Magnifique ! Bon Appetit". I give her the standard "Merci Beaucoup" reply and look down at my plate. There were thin slices of completely raw beef "marinated" in olive oil and garnished with cilantro (or some green looking "stuff").

I looked up at her and said "Seriously, you have got to be kidding me. Did you just run out of gas or did the cook just forget to well.. um.. 'cook' it ?". She obviously didnt understand a word I said, gave me another cute smile, said "Bon Appetite", and walked off.

I wanted to order something else or walk away, but I didnt want to hurt her feelings. So I decided to at least give the dish a try. Contrary to what I had expected, it didnt taste that bad after all. Soon I was digging into it with a gusto.

Then suddenly it struck me. "Didnt they used to have the Mad Cow disease recently in UK/Europe ?? Don't they have the Foot & Mouth disease going on right now ??"

So I put down my fork, paid the bill, got up, and went across the street to the McDonalds where a nice picture menu was waiting for me.