A couple times a year, a new fast food product comes along that leaves us alternately scratching our heads and blown away by the inventors' ingenuity. Pizza with a crust that's stuffed with cheese? Amazing! A taco shell that's actually a giant Dorito? Genius! But believe it or not, even America's most far-out fast food creations pale in comparison to what's being offered by these same chains internationally. We've rounded up 12 of the wildest, most over the top ones that we've encountered.
Chains like Pizza Hut, Burger King, and KFC actually give their international divisions a lot of leeway to come up with new menu items (usually limited-time-only releases) that they think will appeal to the locals while still representing "American" cuisine. And when the popular belief around the world is that American food is grossly outrageous (I wonder why?), that tends to create some truly wild offerings.
Take Pizza Hut Singapore, for example, widely regarded as the most outside-the-box international fast food division. Last year, they released what they called the Double Sensation Pizza, which is so complex it takes a while to describe: The pizza is separated into two rings, an inner ring and an outer ring. The outer ring's crust has melted mozzarella, Cheddar, and Parmesan oozing out of it, and between that and ring number two is a pizza topped with cheese, salsa, bell peppers, mushrooms, and turkey ham. The inner ring is stuffed with chicken sausage, which itself is stuffed with cheese. Inside that ring is a pepper Alfredo sauce, smoked chicken, and slices of zucchini. Oh, and at the center of it all is a cherry.
Believe it or not, it gets even crazier than that.
We're not exactly sure why these chains feel so compelled to release such outrageously insane offering, but hey, good for them. They're living dangerously, pushing the boundaries, and in some cases leading folks to believe that this is how Americans actually eat. Some of these menu items sound legitimately tasty -- Pizza Hut Puerto Rico's Crazy Cheesy Bacon Crust Pizza, for example -- but we think we'll be sticking with the Big Mac.
So read on for 12 international fast food items that are so over the top it's hard to believe that these were actually unleashed on the public. And, oh yeah, these were all released within the past six months!
-Dan Myers, The Daily Meal
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