From BabyMetal to Hello Kitty: 11 Wacky Japanese Trends to Love

Image via McDonald’s Japan

10. Halloween Choco Fries with Pumpkin & Choco Sauce

Pumpkin spice, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, has extended a gourd laden bony finger into Japan for fall through its emissary McDonald’s. Their offering is “Halloween Choco Fries” with “Pumpkin & Choco Sauce.” Technically that’s not really pumpkin spice, but it’s close and weird enough. While they’re called “choco” fries, they appear to be normal, non-chocolate French fries.

The Japanese McDonald’s site describes it as crispy and salty fries with two sauces. An orange pumpkin sauce is balanced by a dark colored chocolate sauce, making it a Halloween decorated treat.

Not only do I not need pumpkin with my fries, I really don’t need to combine it with chocolate too. However, it looks to be a popular savory-sweet item in Japan. There’s even a social media campaign asking people to tweet their sauced fries photos to be read like tea leaves by a chocolate fortune teller account.

Western fast food chains in Asian countries have a history of introducing really weird sounding items. Most of them never make their way back to stores in the US. McDonald’s has existed in Japan for 45 years and has seen everything from German Sausage Chicken to Hot and Groovy Beef to Carbonara Chicken to the Shrimp Salsa Burger. Who knows what they’ll come up with next!