Breakfast Sandwich #95 - McDonald's aka McQuartet

Sandwich: Sausage Egg McMuffin
Location: McDonald's, Little Chute, WI
Date: June 18, 2017
Cost: $3.09

Nobody wants to read about another McMuffin. I know this. It still counts as research.  It's research I can totally phone in though, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

This sandwich came into my life as part of the same road trip that brought you Sandwich #94. There I was at a Mobil/McDonald's in Little Chute, Wisconsin on Sunday morning and I was facing down the digital menu boards. I knew I had reviewed the McGriddle as Sandwich #83 (in what I think is one of my finest reviews. It's a fucking masterpiece, OK?) and there was a sausage sandwich of some sort (Sandwich #66) and there was the another McMuffin way back in the early days (Sandwich #17) but I wasn't sure which one it was. I knew I wasn't going to get the Steak, Egg & Cheese Biscuit. This may be a safe space for unencumbered research but in my head there is a venn diagram that consists of "Steak" and "Things To Order at McDonald's" and you could sail an aircraft carrier between those circles (I think that means it isn't really a Venn diagram but we don't get into math here). It did not occur to me until just now that this would be my fourth review of a McDonald's product. This is embarrassing.

I didn't want to think about it anymore so I ordered the Sausage, Egg McMuffin knowing it was likely that I had already reviewed it.

The color of this is all weird from the tint of the car windows. It was on my lap and I didn't grab a plastic knife and wouldn't have been able to cut it half very well anyway. You know what a McMuffin looks like, right?

The Sandwich - Sausage, Egg McMuffin. I could have/should have ordered the classic Egg McMuffin with Canadian Bacon. It turns out I have not reviewed that, which is a major oversight on my part. Crap. The McMuffin isn't a bad sandwich. It's set the bar for grab and go breakfast sandwiches in the psyche of America simply due to it's longevity and ubiquity.

The muffin could have used a bit more toasting but the cheese was melty and the sausage had more flavor than my sandwich the day before. The egg was a perfect egg puck and was cooked through as is the practice at these types of places. 

The Result - 3.09 Accidental Quartet of Reviews out of 5 Accidental Quartet of Reviews. This sandwich hit the spot on this day but I was hungry and in a car. It wasn't great but I enjoyed it. It cost $3.09 so that's the rating I'm giving it even if that seems a little high. Chances are you've had one of these and you already know what they taste like. I don't have anything else to say about it. 

Epilogue - Now That I've completed this review let's compare past ratings of McDonald's items. This will be a lot of fun.

#17. March 29, 2015. Sausage, Egg McMuffin. 2.29

#66. September 16, 2016. Sausage, Egg Biscuit. 3.50

#83. February 2, 2017. Sausage, Egg McGriddle. 2.60

#95. June 18, 2017. Sausage, Egg McMuffin. 3.09

I don't know what it is that causes me to order sausage at McDonald's, I'm normally more of a bacon guy. 

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Breakfast Sandwich #94 - Kwik Trip aka You Be Trippin'

Sandwich: Sausage, Egg & Cheese Croissant
Location: Kwik Trip, somewhere in the Fox River Valley
Date: June 17, 2017
Cost: $2.69

I'm not a fan of Kwik Trip for reasons unrelated to breakfast sandwiches and I wasn't even aware they had them. I probably could have surmised as much but I never go there and simply never consider them for anything. That's not entirely true, I used the free air hose at a location a few months ago.

As a passenger on a road trip we stopped for gas and whatnot at a Kwik Trip somewhere in the Fox River Valley and there I learned they have a plethora of breakfast sandwich options. I probably should have taken a photo of the entire hot case, which was teeming with sandwiches and possibly breakfast burritos, since the Kwik Trip web site sucks and doesn't list the menu options in a convenient manner.

The hot case has informative signs with all the info you need to make your sandwich decision. Their web site may be shit but their POP signage game is strong. 

You may be accustomed to my crappy photos but you'll have to accept a further drop off in quality here. This was taken standing outside the store near the propane tanks which is why there is not the normal "cross section" photo showing the sandwich innards. 

The Sandwich - Sausage, Egg & Cheese Croissant. Of the many variations of sandwich offered I went with a classic with a twist. I've been on a sausage kick lately but you may recall I have lamented the use of croissants for sandwiches in past reviews. I don't think they make for a proper vessel and they often are too squishy to maintain integrity. For a grab & go style sandwich a croissant is a risky choice as it may not prove to be road worthy. We're all about risks here, clearly, so I went with this one. The real choice I made, the actual hardest decision, was to only buy one sandwich. I was fully aware that I may not ever come back and I thought I might try two varieties so as to conduct maximum research. Ultimately I made the selfish decision to stick to a single sandwich as I had a full day ahead of me and didn't want to feel like a rat trapped in a grease trap.

So, anyway. The croissant was shaped almost in a square which makes for a better sandwich than a normal, elongated croissant. I suspect they bio-engineer them this way for sandwich purposes and I have to give them credit for that. The sausage was more bland than I expected. For any fast food restaurant or gas station I assume the sausage will be salty and grisly but this was on the bland side, which I guess is better than grisly. The cheese was American and was melty from being in the hot case. The egg was the typical non-yolky-we-dont-take-any-chances variety you get from all these kinds of places that don't like to have any fun and make their employees wear stupid polo shirts. 

The Result - 2.69 I Probably Wasn't Going To Come Back Regardlesses out of 5 I Probably Wasn't Going To Come Back Regardlesses. This sandwich cost $2.69 and was worth every penny, exactly. My overall impressions of the sandwich were "bland" and "squishy". I kind of enjoyed the squishiness. I think it helped the whole thing sorta melt in my mouth and slide down my gullet, which may not sound good to you but it worked on this morning while standing in the parking lot. The blandness was less impressive as blandness is in any type of food or endeavor. It was an OK sandwich, and for the price, perfectly acceptable if you're in a hurry and have low expectations. A guy like me, I have higher expectations.

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Breakfast Sandwich #93 - Panera aka Fool Me Twice, Won't Get Fooled Again

Sandwich: Sausage, Egg & Cheese
Location: Panera Bread
Date: June 10, 2017
Cost: $4.29

I had an early appointment on the east side with plans to go out for breakfast immediately after. When I learned that my destination of choice would not open for another hour I had to come up with a new angle. The only place on the far east side that I could think of that I haven't reviewed is IHOP, and that didn't strike me as a particularly good option. Still, I pulled up their menu on my phone to see what their breakfast sandwich offerings are. Things weren't looking so good. The only breakfast sandwich listed is the Ham & Egg Melt and that gave me flashbacks to the awful Moons Over My Hammy sandwich from Denny's. That was enough to steer me away from IHOP.

Potbelly's has recently relocated and I know that they offer breakfast sandwiches at some of their locations, but this one was closed. It turns out none of the Madison locations offer breakfast. Then I saw Panera. I had already reviewed Panera in 2016 but figured I would order something different and there could still be sandwich enlightenment.

Sometimes if the top part is a little crooked it looks jaunty and cheeky but this time it just looks like somebody doesn't give a fuck about their work.

<sad trombone sound>

The Sandwich - Sausage, Egg and Cheese. Generally I will order the bacon sandwich if a menu has options. I didn't look up my previous Panera review and assumed I would have ordered bacon, so I went with sausage this time. As I write this I am learning that I ordered sausage on my previous trip as well, so we have consistent data here for comparison. Or, we're just wasting our time. I have pulled up the link to the previous review but have not read it so as not to color my opinions today.

They don't offer choice of cheese or bread, which is odd considering "bread" is part of their name. They also don't offer additional toppings although they have them on hand. When you order a Sausage, Egg and Cheese sandwich that's exactly what you get. According to my receipt the cheese is a white cheddar. The bread is ciabatta.

The bread was nicely toasted and had an outer crunch I liked but things went downhill fast after that. The cheese was melted and gooey and was the overwhelming flavor here. The sausage may be the blandest sausage I've ever had. If you had told me later than it was a vegan-tempeh-fauxsage I would have believed you. There isn't much to say about the egg. Like all chain restaurants, it was cooked so as to reduce the risk of foodborne illness, which is to say there was no runny yolk. 

The Result - 2 Mistaken Repeat Reviews out of 5 Mistaken Repeat Reviews. I'm giving a point for the bread and a point for the cheese. This wasn't a terrible sandwich but it didn't have much going for it, it was mostly just bland. Everything about this visit was bland. The idea to go there was bland. All the people eating there were bland (SHIT! I was one of those people!) Next time I'll look at my old reviews so I don't wander down the same bland path. It's my own damn fault, hell, my previous review was named "I Think I'm Done With Chain Restaurants". If I had looked that up I might have just gone home instead of getting fooled again. Shame on me. 

Epilogue - Now that I have finished this review I went back to read about my first Panera experience. In both cases I used the word "sad" in a photo caption. Although this sandwich was assembled better I gave it a much lower rating. Reading the previous review the score of 3.5 seems way too generous. In the previous review I said the sausage wasn't too salty or grisly but didn't complain of the absence of flavor. In both cases I grumbled about the egg being overcooked for my tastes - nothing new about that, is there?

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