Lord of the Fries: Breakfast Reboot
For those of you who are not familiar with Lord of the Fries, here's a quick run down:
It is a fast food chain that is 100% vegetarian.
And if you ask, it can also be vegan as well.
They started in Melbourne and there are two stores in Auckland (K'Rd and Queens St), with plans to expand.
If you don't frequent K'Rd much you may well have missed them. They're often a late night go to after a set at Whammy Bar or drinks at nearby Wine Cellar for their fries and multitudes of accompanying sauce options. They've also had outposts at a number of festivals over the summer months, including at St Jerome's Laneway Festival. Because, you know, indie music festivals attract an inordinate number of vegetarian and vegan punters.
Now I'll confess, there is the odd occasion where I am running too late in the morning to make myself breakfast, but there is just enough time to shoot through a McDonald's drive through and order me my guilty pleasure, a Sausage and Egg McMuffin combo. But starting from next week, Lord of the Fries will be serving a new breakfast menu, which will give morning commuters more vegan and vegetarian options to grab on their way to work.
I popped in to try the hash browns, Chick'n Waffle and Hash & Patty breakfast bun. The hash browns were perfect, not that that's surprising, they do specialise in fried potato goods. Golden, hot and crisp with just the right amount of salt. I was excited to try the Chick'n Waffle, mostly because I didn't think it was kosher to eat fried 'chicken' this early in the morning. Crisp and juicy fried 'chicken', maple syrup and 'bacon' came sandwiched between two sweet, albeit slightly floppy, waffles, ticking all the boxes in the sweet, salty and smoky column. As a self-confessed omnivore, I was taken aback by how good the fried 'chicken' was. The bacon on the other hand, whilst lending an unmistakeable smoky flavour to the sandwich, had a rather creepy appearance and texture that resembled baloney. I guess there are somethings scientists haven't quite managed to copy just yet.
The Hash & Patty breakfast bun was English muffin-esque albeit softer and fluffier. Whether that's your jam or not depends on what you think an English muffin should be. The patty, which I kept referring to as sausage (force of habit I suppose) was a bit dry and floury but then again, sausages are fat, juicy and bad for you for a reason. It is however rescued well by the vegan cheese and slathering of barbecue sauce and diced onion.
Will I be giving my up wicked ways for a soybean patty-laden lifestyle? Probably not just yet, but I've already started to reduce my meat consumption on the regular and the ability to be able to eat 'chicken' and waffles for breakfast may just have me detouring from the Great North Road McD's drive through for St Kevin's Arcade instead.
Shop 2
St Kevins Arcade
183 Karangahape Rd
and
1 Queen St
Auckland CBD