For quite some time people seem to have been adding eggs to foods not usually topped with eggs.
We've seen eggs with a loose yolk added to pizzas and placed on top of hamburgers. It's a trend that works because a runny egg actually enhances a lot of foods (sorry, Guy Fieri).
In a broader sense, the line between breakfast and lunch or dinner has been blurring. Chicken and waffles has become a menu staple that melds the two ideas perfectly, and oddly none of the major fast-food chains added its take on the pairing to a menu.
Even more noteworthy is that aside from bacon, no traditional breakfast item has made its way to the lunch and dinner menus at McDonald's (MCD) , Wendy's (WEN) , or Restaurant Brands International's (QSR) Burger King.
You'd think one of the chains would try to use sausage as a burger topping (or maybe for Sausagenator Fries), but it has yet to happen.
McDonald's, however, has brought a breakfast staple to one of its menus, and it seems like something the chain could consider making a menu staple (or at least a broader limited-time offer).
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When you travel the world, you notice that people will put the word "American" in front of things Americans don't actually eat. Order "American Pizza" or "American Pancakes" in parts of the world and what you get will involve corn in a way actual American menus have never considered.
So it's no surprise that the American representative on McDonald's' Taste of the World Menu has not actually appeared on the chain's menu in the U.S.
"McDonald's offers a limited-time Taste of the World menu over in Taiwan and it currently features the Rosti Cheese Double Beef Burger, which is basically a double cheeseburger with a hash brown patty and cheddar cheese sauce," Brand Eating reported.
"Specifically, the Rosti Cheese Double Beef Burger features two beef patties, a hashbrown patty, cheddar cheese sauce, tomato, onion, and lettuce on a cornmeal-dusted bun. Rosti is a Swiss dish that is similar to hash browns."
That's an idea that sounds as if it should be a thing on U.S. menus, but there's a key reason it hasn't been.
Adding hash browns to a burger seems like an easy way to create a new choice without complicating the menu. The problem is that each McDonald's location essentially has only the number of fryers it needs to make french fries, Chicken McNuggets, and fried chicken patties for sandwiches.
It's easy for customers to say "just make a batch of hash browns," but the chain also has rules about how long products can sit before they must be discarded. That's why the chain did not bring back All-Day Breakfast, after it dropped the offering to simplify the menu during the pandemic.
There's only so much kitchen space to go around, and hash browns (or eggs for that matter) can't be left out for long periods until customers order them. Franchisees generally have sharply opposed any product changes that slow down the kitchen.
And even if a hash-brown breakfast burger would be awesome, its existence, at least in the U.S., would likely hold up orders for fries, which are ordered with nearly every meal, and Chicken McNuggets, which are pretty popular, too.