NEW YORK (AP) — At a dinner McDonald's hosted for reporters and bloggers, waiters served cuisine prepared by celebrity chefs using ingredients from the chain's menu. Slow-cooked beef was served with gnocchi fashioned out of McDonald's french fries and a fruit sauce from its smoothie mix. The event, held in New York City's Tribeca neighborhood, was billed "A transforming dining experience of 'fast food' to 'good food served fast.'" Attendees tweeted out photos and the night was written up on various websites. In the past 18 months, the chain has introduced the option to substitute egg whites in breakfast sandwiches and rolled out chicken wraps as its first menu item with cucumbers. [...] while McDonald's has added salads and a yogurt parfait to its menu over the years, Americans are gravitating toward other attributes, like organic produce and meat raised without antibiotics. "People just don't think of McDonald's as having that premium quality," said Sara Senatore, a restaurant industry analyst with Bernstein Research. [...] even that reputation for supply chain rigor was recently tarnished when the chain's longtime supplier was reported to have sold expired meat to its restaurants in China. The low-cost burgers, ice cream cones and other food that made McDonald's so popular since it was founded in 1955 have come to define it. McDonald's low prices also are part of what keeps it from competing with places such as Chipotle, which is touting the removal of genetically modified ingredients from its menu, and Panera, which recently said it will eliminated all artificial ingredients by 2016.