I’ve been to hundreds of McDonald’s in over 55 countries – these are my favourite restaurants and the most unusual meals I tried

If you thought all McDonald’s restaurants were the same – think again.

In a fascinating book called McAtlas, a devoted fan of the fast-food chain, Gary He, reveals that it operates in a bewildering variety of outlets, from the grand to the bizarre, serving dozens of different localised dishes, from the weird to the wonderful – including 70 variations of the chicken burger alone.

And here, Gary, from Brooklyn, New York, tells MailOnline Travel about the highlights of a global tour charted in the tome that saw him visit a ski-thru McDonald’s in Sweden and try meals from McSpaghetti to macaroni soup.

There are more than 41,000 McDonald’s in over 100 countries, and Gary managed to get himself to 55 countries across six continents to photograph hundreds of the branches.

But it was the McSki, open only during the winter months in Lindvallen ski resort, Sälen, Sweden, that was Gary’s ‘personal favourite’.

Opened in 1996 and designed to look like a lodge, this branch features a ski-thru window at the back where passers-by can order from the El Maco menu – a Tex-Mex offering only available in Nordic countries.

Gary tells us: ‘The McSki was isolated, on the side of a mountain, and allowed for some of my favourite pictures from the entire trip.’

Another highlight for Gary was in Roswell, USA – a UFO-shaped McDonald’s embracing the local area’s history of ‘alien sightings’.

Not only is it shaped like a flying saucer, but there are also statues of Ronald McDonald and friends in space suits dotted around, as well as a statue of an alien greeting guests at the entrance.

Gary adds: ‘It’s also one of the few McDonald’s restaurants in the world allowed to have a gift shop – and who doesn’t love merch?’

Gary was also a fan of China’s first McDonald’s. Found in Shenzhen’s central shopping district, Dongmen, it serves unusual desserts such as taro pie, made from the root vegetable that’s popular there.

In McAtlas, Gary reveals how this McDonald’s branch opened in 1990, at a time when China ‘continued to liberalise its economy and the local population surged with workers looking to reap the benefits of the Special Economic Zone’.

He adds: ‘It’s beautiful and historically significant.

‘Once a major experiment in an economic sandbox, it now feels frozen in time, as every other building around this area is a modern glass-and-steel structure.’

For the ‘world’s coolest McDonald’s’, Gary ventured 8,809 miles to Taupo, New Zealand, to visit a restaurant where diners can eat Kiwiburgers [beetroot slices and fried egg atop a beef patty] while sitting inside a decommissioned Douglas DC-3 plane with the famous Golden Arches stencilled onto its fuselage.

The former galley, meanwhile, has photos and notes about the history of the plane and even a view into the cockpit.

‘That was the biggest pain to get to,’ Gary tells us. ‘Not only is Auckland very far from my hometown of New York, but then I had to get on a prop plane for another couple of hours to the centre of the north island.

‘But seeing it for myself and taking pictures of it was well worth the 24-hour trek just to get down there.

‘There was a real joy walking up to it after seeing so many photos online. It’s iconic.’

Another favourite McDonald’s for Gary, much closer to home, was Denton House, in Hempstead, New Hyde Park, New York, due to its history – and the fact it became a ‘harbinger’ for the rest of Long Island’s McDonald’s architecture in the area.

Built in 1795 and then converted into a two-storey mansion in the 1860s, complete with the colonnade and circular veranda still seen today, Denton House was a private residence until after World War I, when it was turned into a funeral home and then into various restaurants.

By 1986, Gary explains in McAtlas, the property had fallen into disrepair, so McDonald’s bought it for $1million to knock it down and build a ‘then-standard’ flat-roofed restaurant in its place.

However, a petition from locals led to the property being deemed a landmark in 1988, and McDonald’s was ‘forced to preserve and restore the building’, eventually opening it in 1991, ‘complete with chandeliers and exposed wood beams’.

Gary says this inspired communities in Long Island to fight for the McDonald’s in their towns ‘to better resemble local architecture’, with many succeeding.

Gary first realised how much McDonald’s localises its menus when he visited Morocco during Ramadan and was served an iftar kit (a gift box given to celebrate the Muslim festival) made up of dates, chebakia (a honey-covered local pastry), a yoghurt-milk beverage, and Harira soup.

He’s now had plenty of different foods from McDonald’s around the world that’s traditional to the area, also including poutine (chips, cheese and gravy) in Canada and burgers served in rye buns in Finland.

But the most unusual McDonald’s food Gary says he ate was in the Philippines, where he tried the local delicacy of McSpaghetti.

‘And it’s not what you’d expect!’ he adds.

Using a sweet marinara substitute made from sweet banana ketchup and chopped-up hot dog sausages, McSpaghetti was launched in McDonald’s in 1986, in response to Philippines chain Jollibee having introduced its version, Jolly Spaghetti, eight years prior.

Gary says: ‘It became a flavour profile that every local loved, and Jollibee made it insanely popular at kids’ birthday parties, so McDonald’s just had to sell its own version of it when it launched in the Philippines.

‘The McSpaghetti was really fun to look at and to photograph.’

Hong Kong’s macaroni soup (pasta topped with ham and egg, in beef or chicken broth) was another highlight. Gary described it as a ‘comfort food’, having grown up ‘in a household that had immigrated from Southern China’, where the dish is popular.

‘I was pleased to see that on the menus in Hong Kong,’ he says.

Despite having now published McAtlas, Gary’s journey hasn’t ended.

He’s ‘keeping an eye’ on China and Japan’s ever-changing menu, and also planning to head back to Hamburg’s McBoat. At this branch people in boats can pull up at a jetty and order food from the water.

‘Although the idea is quite cool, I didn’t get to see any boats pull up to the dock either of the times that I visited the location,’ he finishes. ‘Maybe a third visit will be the lucky one.’

Gary He’s McAtlas: A Global Guide to the Golden Arches is available to buy now. Visit www.mcatlas.com.