Thursday, September 16, 2010

Burger King’s new breakfast items

September 16

If you ever wondered what a Burger King would look like if it had a velvet rope in front of it, wonder no longer. Just look to your left.

BK’s corporate folks roped off this franchised location in Midtown Manhattan (34th St., between Seventh and Eighth avenues) to invite the New York City media to try some of the chain’s new breakfast items, which they launched last week.

As you might imagine, New York City food writers can be pretty snotty when it comes to fast food. The last time BK threw a similar shindig, to introduce us to its new batch broiler, one of my fellow writers expressed shock to me that he actually enjoyed his hamburger.

Snotty, but open-minded.

Today one of the guests, who may or may not have been an idiot, declined when a server (oh yes, there are servers at these events, and tablecloths and metal cutlery and actual glasses for water — very classy) asked if she’d like some blueberry biscuits.

One of her table mates pointed out that this was, in fact, a tasting and that she should at the very least taste them.

Yeah, probably she was an idiot.

You can see the best picture I took of the biscuits on the right (note the classy blue tablecloth underneath). Beauty shots from BK can be seen here.

They also gave us a sausage, egg and cheese Croissan'wich®, which I didn't bother to take a picture of because they’ve been around forever.

On the left is a picture of the relatively new breakfast bowl, which corporate chef Jason Sullivan described as being everything you’d want in an omelet, but in a bowl instead.

This one had roasted potatoes, grilled onions and peppers, sausage and cheese, along with eggs that “Chef J,” as the company likes to call him, said were scrambled in-house.

I asked if unit employees were actually cracking eggs and scrambling them, which of course they’re not. He said the pasteurized eggs come in standard pre-cracked foodservice form and are scrambled and cooked usually in a microwave, except at units, like the ones in Mexico, that have a griddle insert that can be put on top of the fryer.

He said they’re not supposed to be held for more than 20 minutes.

We also had pancakes, which I photographed, too, but you already know what pancakes look like, and the new breakfast ciabatta club sandwich.

Chef J said the "smoky tomato sauce" is supposed to remind us of sun-dried tomatoes, and the raw tomatoes and bacon are supposed to remind us of club sandwiches.

I bet you didn’t know chefs at quick service burger chains thought so much about their food, did you?

7 comments:

Bette said...

Burger King does use that nasty liquid and pre-formed egg product. You know what they could do? They could use a pasteurized shell egg so they can crack eggs fresh and serve a MUCH BETTER breakfast. Think Panera. That's what they use in their sandwich and it's what they use.

Bette said...

Meant to say that it's what Panera uses and Burger King should use.

Dr. Potato said...

I had high hopes for a tater tot casserole breakfast item, maybe next time.

Bret Thorn said...

Sure, Bette, shell eggs are an option, but I think Panera’s egg sandwiches are a bit more expensive than Burger King’s.

I imagine there are also training and consistency issues when it comes to working with shell eggs that might be hard for a system as large as Burger King’s to deal with.

Unknown said...

I agree, glad they are using a pasteurized product, for safety reasons but a pasteurized in the shell egg freshly cracked would make the food so, so, soooo much better.

Edward said...

Sadly, I'm drooling at the image of those blueberry muffins. Thanks for taking pictures of the actual food and not advertisements--they never look the same.

Pakistan Society of Nuclear Medicine - PSNM said...

thanks for the post.