If you’re like me, you’ve fallen down many a rabbit hole of International McDonald’s menu items. I’ve clicked through listicle after annoying listicle just yearning for the day America embraces the weirdness that the rest of the world gets to bask in daily.

Good thing for us, McDonald’s has introduced a new “Worldwide Favorites” menu. What say we go for a little trip across the pond?

The Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger comes courtesy of Spain and consists of a Quarter Pounder, Applewood Bacon, McBacon Sauce, slivered onions, and two slices of Gouda.

Quick questions – I thought Gouda was a Dutch cheese? Is it a staple of Spaniard diets? Is McDonald’s making stuff up?!

Anyway, the Gouda and McBacon Sauce were the ingredients I was most excited about. I’ve never had either on a fast food burger. I assumed they were what made this burger so extreme. So McExtreme!

The Gouda was mild, but there was just enough of that creamy, smoky flavor you’d want. It meshed really well. There are so many overpowering cheeses that could have ruined everything, so no matter where Gouda derives from, it was the right choice for this particular burger.

I’d take McBacon Sauce over ketchup on literally every burger going forward. It’s equal parts smoky, tangy, and well, bacon-y. It’s too bad they screwed me with only a small dollop. Every burger I buy is swimming in sauce. The one time I’d actually like that, I get a dab.

The rest of the ingredients were retreads, although I’ll say that not having a Quarter Pounder in a while really made me feel like I was eating a premium hamburger – at least by McDonald’s standards.

Applewood Bacon has become a can’t miss topping, so no complaints there.

The onions didn’t add much, so I ended up scraping most of them off. They should’ve used crispy fried onions.

I wondered why they didn’t do anything fancy with the sesame seed bun, but I got a nice fresh one at least.

The most impressive thing about this burger was how clean it somehow was. The box was initially oily and gross (I guess that was from the bacon? Maybe some Gouda run-off?), but the burger as a whole was shockingly easy to eat. That was likely exclusive to my experience, but nothing fell off the burger, and I didn’t even need a napkin, which is unheard of. I imagine that’s how Europeans like their burgers.

All in all, this was a creative, tasty burger, which is great because, besides the Stroopwafel McFlurry, the other Worldwide Favorites are boring. Cheese fries? Mozzarella chicken sandwich? Meh. What makes mozzarella Canadian? McDonald’s is just randomly assigning cheeses to countries!

Despite the mystery grease, the Grand McExtreme is one of the better fast food burgers I’ve had in ages. Is it distinctly Spanish? I couldn’t tell ya, but no matter what, Me encanta! (This is Google Spanish for “I’m Loving it,” so blame them if it’s wrong.)

Purchased Price: $6.60
Size: N/A
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 750 calories, 47 grams of fat, 18 grams of saturated fat, 145 milligrams of cholesterol, 1310 milligrams of sodium, 38 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 8 grams of sugar, and 43 grams of protein.

I am of the opinion that McDonald’s outside of the states is better.

One of my all-time favorite fast food sandwiches is the McSpicy in Asia. Now one of my all-time favorite treats is the Stroopwaffel McFlurry from the Netherlands! But, the best is part is that I can get the latter here (for a limited time unless you visit the Chicago HQ McDonald’s locations which carries international items regularly.)

If you’re not familiar with a stroopwafel, it’s a euro-phenom. It’s basically a genius way to eat a cookie for breakfast; they’re very thin (even thinner than Oreo Thins!) waffle wafers sandwiching caramel. The waffle itself has the cinnamon goodness of a freshly made waffle cone, but it’s much more pliable, delicate because it bends with the caramel without crumbling. I appreciate McDonald’s went with the most well-known maker Daelmans.

But, you won’t find a whole cookie! The treat itself has broken up pieces of one blended with caramel and vanilla soft serve.

Because I may have been the first person order this at the location I went to, I was able to overhear the details about making the sausage, um, soft serve treat. The snack size comes with two scoops of cookie bits and a regular comes with three. Both get one pump of caramel.

The cookie pieces ate like caramel bits that beautifully stuccoed the vanilla soft serve. They didn’t freeze up from the cold. Also, one scoop of bits was plenty generous as I thought there was a nice distribution throughout the treat.

The pump of caramel nicely enhanced the caramel in the stroopwafel but didn’t overtake it. However, I could tell the stuff in the cookie was better with notes of cinnamon and vanilla compared to the straight sugar of the confection that was pumped in.

Overall, if you love caramel, you’ll definitely enjoy this!

Purchased Price: $2.29
Size: Snack Size
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 480 calories, 13 grams of fat, 8 gram of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 81 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 57 grams of sugar, and 9 grams of protein.