no way i could get to any of those listed in my lunch break, most times i just need fast food. we live in a high speed society, i doubt many if any of us working could wait 20 mins for lunch to arrive, add on service time to cooking time and you is looking at 30 mins.
i no doubt the others are a better burger, but just not accessible to me and maybe most of us most of the time. pardon me for not wanting to be judged by the food police, jeez are you after matts old job?

The French cafe hamburger is awful.

Humdinger and Aussie Bite are a big step above a BK Whopper (which is 23rmb) in both price and probably quality. But they aren't fast food joints.

I dislike Chinese food for treats or social occasions. I particularly dislike when you go out for dinner at a fashionable place in a shopping mall where you have to wait outside with your ticket. When you eventually get in, you (or most likely your Chinese friend who has poor taste in food) will order a load of dishes none of which turn out to be that good, so everyone picks at everything and encourages other people to eat whilst pretending to be full but actually nobody is full and frankly they would have been better off just getting a pizza or steak or burger. So sometimes you dao bao it but most of the time its just to pretend that you're not wasting it - actually you have no intention of ever eating it cos it wasn't that nice fresh, let alone a day or two old! And of course then there's the fact that you put your chopsticks to your mouth then put it in the shared dishes, but that's probably the least of the hygiene worries in China!

In conclusion: Burger King ain't great but it does the job, unlike many restaurants in a similar or higher price bracket.

I'll stick up for BK a little bit in saying that they seem to have lots of restaurants in airports in China and around the world. This means I can go there and eat for the same price I would on the high street instead of having a bowl of noodles for 100rmb or a sandwich for 12 Euros etc.

I don't know how hungry I would have to be to ask for a large portion of those horrible greasy skinny chips that they serve there.

Also I used to visit McDonald's a fair bit to get my fill for strawberry milkshakes but I haven't been able to come by one, in China, for around a year.

What I don't like is they've exported all the American BS along with their crappy chips.

So you can't have a ciggy after dinner in these American places.

The McDonalds in Xiaohuayuan has strawberry milkshakes.

Also the French Cafe burgers are fine. I'd avoid the ones at Prague Cafe though. Lots of fillers.

Maybe it's the usual longing for something that is not so readily available, but McDonald's, BK, KFC, Taco Bell, and any other "fast" food one can name is at lowest end of what I consider edible. It consists of poor quality ingredients, laden with fat and sugar and of little nutritional value. The corporate versions of fast food that my country, the U.S. has exported to the rest of the world is creating the same health problems that has led the U.S. obesity and heart disease.

Oh, and for those of you who want to have a "ciggy" after eating such terrible food, just walk outside instead of inflicting your habit on everyone around you.

Fast food doesn't cause obesity and heart disease. It's eating too much of it and making poor choices that cause those.
Americans are fatties because they have the option of buying excessive meal portions while queuing up in their mobility scooter and they choose to finish those portions and sit on their asses the rest of the day.

You can get the same result by preparing your own food at home while sitting at the kitchen table, eating that food in excess and sitting down in front of the TV for the whole day.

I'm curious as to where these non-fast food burger places in town get their ground beef for their burgers.

Metro?

I'm asking because I'd like to buy some decent quality ground beef and make my own burgers.

@NavyVet
Go to any wet market. You can select your cut of beef and ask them to mince it for you. They all have mincers.

The only downsides of this are that you have to buy a larger quantity (but you can freeze it) and if you are not the first that morning there will probably be residual ground pork in the mincer. That may or may not bother you. It doesn't me.
If you go to the Muslim butcher (you will see an Arabic sign) you won't have to worry about pork, and the beef is often better.
I have not seen minced beef in Metro, that I recall. But they do sell imported vacuum packed cuts of Australian beef.

Yankee is right. Obesity is not caused by imported fast food culture. It is caused by bad eating and often coupled with a lack of exercise. In my wife's home town I have seen an explosion of obesity, especially juvenile obesity. They have no western fast food places.
What I do see is kids fed on cake, candy, sweetened dairy products, large portions of rice, and a lot of late night shao kao; and for grown ups beer with it. 10 years ago I did not see this.
The other big change in China is the sedentary lifestyle. Bad for both obesity and diabetes. Not just gao kao, but any free time seems to be spent digitally today. In the past you kicked a ball, threw stones, climbed the mountain, or insulted your neighbour's mum and then had to run down the street fast.
The same as in the west, the big changes are more access to food (thoughtless grazing), larger portions sizes, more carbs, and sedentary lifestyle.