I'm a Dominican and trust me I would rather have a plate of Arroz con Chivo any day instead of a Big Mac, but what you have to understand is that this is new stuff to the average Dominican who's been hearing about these restaurants on cable TV for years, but have never had the chance to actually taste it.
This is why the DR middle class who can't really afford to eat this every day, but once in a while goes bananas over this and it's a treat when they can take their kids out to Mcdonalds, Wendy's, etc...The upper middle class and up loves to have restaurants like Chili's, TGIF, outback steakhouse, etc cause these are places that a little above Wendy's et al and they may have even visited them if they ever came to The US or other countries.
It's not a Dominican phenomenon. In Mexico for instance the people I work with would rather go to TGIF or Starbucks than the local restaurants or coffee shops which BTW are Wayyyyy better, but everyone always wants what's not readily available.
I am not opposed to these franchises either, even though I would rather go to Adrian Tropical or some place with local fare, but at least it gives people choices and who knows if I lived there permanently I'm sure there would be days when I would feel like some ribs from Tony Roma or some blooming onion from Outback instead of Rice and Guandules con bacalo...mmmm...getting hungry.
I love the babybacks from Tony Romas in La Sarasota, lol, don't get me wrong. I go to all of these places, yet look forward tot he sancocho waiting for me at home.....I guess the IKEA stampede really pist me off. It's like, we've come a really long way to losing our sense of self when we, as people, love to have extremely high demands and go for things with "mala fe", yet....when a bones thrown at us, we go crazy. The choices don't bother me at all, it's the uproar that certain things cause. Makes people from the outside looking in think of, and eventually treat us, as, no better than the Taino's that went crazy over mirrors and traded all their gold away for it.
Btw: Not a fan of bacalao, but moro de guandules con chivo guisao and maybe some guineitos on the side if it's not too much to ask, lol.
I moved to DR when I was 10 and the first thing I noticed when I was a kid, about these sort of things, was when McDonalds first came onto the scene some years later. Dude, the place was PACKED and people didn't even know why they were there, for the most part, lol.
And omfg, El Tunel de la 27. Did you know that people would have tours to go through it from ALL over the country? LOL, it used to frustrate the hell out of me. Now it's more like, ok, I get it....but I still can't shake the feeling of "come on, man....really? it's not that big a deal."