Practicalmadness

We take a break from our usual topics of death and nerdery to focus instead on something far more important: breakfast.

Specifically, fast food breakfast, something for which I have a vast and irrational love. In my house we never had fluffy pancakes or homemade sausage gravy; a special weekend breakfast was a bagful of breakfast sandwiches from Krystal, Hardee’s or McDonalds. And so on those days when I feel like a yoghurt and/or muffin just won’t cut it, and a sit-down meal at one of my Preferred Brunch Spots would be overkill, I ride on down to McDonalds and grab the usual: a steak/egg/cheese bagel combo meal, with hash browns and an iced coffee. (I am aware that my arteries will seek revenge later.)

I mention this because Wendy’s — purveyors of the best fast-food hamburger that can legitimately be called a fast-food hamburger, rather than a real hamburger that just happens to come from behind a counter — are now testing a breakfast menu at some of their Chicago-area locations. And as befits the establishment that invented the Frosty (a dessert that manages to tread the uncanny valley between ice cream and shake), said menu is fucking weird.

Before delving into the weirdness, however, let me cut to the chase: Wendy’s breakfast is agreeable, sometimes tasty, not altogether a bad value, but not at all worth riding a mile and a half on a bicycle to get. It’s not like Hardee’s biscuits, which I have driven over ten miles and waited in a drive-thru line for half an hour to get, or even something as bland-but-reliable as a McMuffin. Certainly their offerings are preferable to Burger King’s, but only by a sliver.

And just so you understand where my priorities lie, all of these fast-food breakfasts pale in comparison to (say) a pastry or breakfast sandwich from Corner Bakery or Au Bon Pain, or the breakfast panini from Milk & Honey on Division St. If a McDonalds breakfast is a compromise, then Wendys’ is a compromise of a compromise, a pale simulacrum of the hearty, filling meal you could be having right now, if only there were an extra hour in the day.

Drill a Hole In That Substrate and Tell Me What You See

A wide variety of sandwich rolls is not uncommon in the land of fast-food breakfast: McDonalds, famously, has the generic biscuit, bagel and English Muffin, as well as their own proprietary (and disgusting) McGriddles™. Burger King has Croissan’wich™, and for anything that won’t fit on a Croissan’wich™ (like the awesomely named Meatnormous Omelet Sandwich) they just use the stale sub rolls they serve their chicken products on.

Wendy’s breakfast sandwiches come on any of four different substrates:

• A biscuit
• A “Frescuit™”, which is what happens when you force a buttermilk biscuit and one of Wendy’s “Frescata™” sandwich rolls to fuck at gunpoint
• A hamburger bun
• A tortilla (for breakfast burritos)

Why offer both a biscuit and a “Frescuit™?” Fast-food biscuits, after all, totally lack the soft flakiness of actual biscuits and end up being crumbly, caky, stale-seeming rolls with way, way too much artificial butter flavoring. A Frescuit™ solves this problem by retaining the smooth, crispy outer texture while not even trying to replicate the mealy inside, providing that same ersatz biscuit flavor in a form factor that holds sandwich fixins’ better than an ordinary biscuit. It is, in other words, designed to be a superior breakfast sandwich foundation, and therefore should obviate the need for fake biscuits on the menu.

So why are they there? If I were to guess, it’s the illusion of variety. Wendy’s is hoping to distinguish themselves from McDonald’s by offering a full dollar menu at breakfast, which includes burrito-, biscuit- and bun-based sandwiches, but no Frescuits™. The Frescuit, rather, is used on only one sandwich (the aptly titled “Buttermilk Frescuit™ Sandwich,” pictured at left).

I find this odd because the Frescuit™ is one of two really awesome things which distinguish Wendys’ breakfast offerings from the competition. It’s not a culinary triumph by any means, but it’s original, distinctive and tasty.

If you came to this site looking for something germane to the world of software or product development, let me tide you over with this thought: Frescuit™, like Croissan’wich™ or McGriddles™, ought to be a platform, not a product. In other words, the entire menu ought to be based around this triumph of artificial breadmaking. An entire breakfast initiative based around a freaky new roll is a bold statement; a single Friscuit™-based sandwich on a menu dominated by crappy biscuits and hamburger buns just seems like a white elephant.

And while I’m on the subject of distinguishing features, Wendy’s does manage to redeem themselves from their whole Frescuit™-marginalization problem by offering diners a choice of side items with their breakfast combos, just as they do at lunchtime. There’s the standard hashbrown, of course, but you can also have either a freakily squared-off blueberry muffin or a dry, semi-terrifying cinnamon roll (pictured below).

Yes, I know — neither of those options sounds like something I’d actually want to eat, given the option of eating something else instead. You know, like Play-Doh. And since Wendy’s Custom Bean coffee is admitted on the menu to be nothing more than glorified Folgers, I might have to recommend just not ordering the combo meals at all unless you’re on such a grease bender that a hash brown is worth more than the dollar you’d pay for it a la carte.

But it’s the thought that counts, and I give Wendy’s points for trying, just as I reserve mad respect for Microsoft for inventing fast user switching so Apple could come along, rip off the idea and actually do it right. Hopefully Wendy’s innovative, flexible combo policy will inspire McDonalds to start letting me substitute a fruit salad or yoghurt for hash browns.

Pictured below: the Big Breakfast Sandwich, a regular Wendy’s hamburger bun filled with eggs, cheese, bacon and sausage. Oh, the meatnormity.