Fast-food outlets are as common as gas stations in the UAE, in part because a Burger King or a Hardees or a Pizza Hut typically is part of the 7-Eleven style retail area a few feet from the pumps.

We try to avoid fast food here for the same reasons we would back home — fried food, sugary drinks, lots of calories, etc.

But one of us had a craving, this week, and there we were at the McDonald’s, global king of fast food, not half a mile from where we live, in Abu Dhabi.

One of us ordered fries and McNuggets. The other ordered something untested, the McArabia, meant to be the giant company’s nod toward regional cuisine.

And how was the McArabia?

Not bad. Not bad at all.

It is a sandwich based on a circle of pita bread — thicker and more moist than the Arab flat bread so common to the region.

The pita is folded, with two thin slabs of re-formed chicken inside, along with tomato slices and shredded lettuce and delivered in a flat, rectangular box.

The goal, I think, it for something reminiscent of several snack/lunch foods consumed in the region — in particular the shawarma sandwich or the falafel sandwich. (Though Americans might also think “burrito”.)

They key ingredient is a garlic-mayonnaise sauce. It adds moisture to the sandwich and also makes it a bit savory. (It reminded me of the tahini sauce, though not as runny, usually found in the falafel sandwich.)

As is often the case with garlic, you notice it more after you eat it than while you eat it, and it also can linger as an unpleasant smell, in a closed space, due to the garlic-mayo leaking onto the packaging.

If I ate this at my desk in an office, I would make a point of disposing the wrapping outside.

But certainly edible and good for appearing to “localize” the menu — always a clever idea for the group that arrives with one person not all that keen on the usual Big Mac/McNuggets menu.

Perhaps another reason why McDonald’s is able to claim outlets in 111 countries and 68 million customers daily.