The Golden Arches. Even those who profess to hate it fall prey to its addictive breakfasts. The Deluxe Breakfast, the Egg McMuffin, and the most evil, habit-forming nemesis of all, the Sausage McMuffin With Egg.
It's a pretty simple recipe when it comes down to it: an egg with breakfast sausage, a slice of cheese, and an English muffin. Yet somehow when other places try to do it, they don't get it right. The biggest problem is the egg being too large for the muffin; with regards to the sausage, it's always too small for the muffin, or places have decided to make the offerings too bourgeois, using fancy sausage. The cheese has to be melted to the bun, or it doesn't work, and the bun has to be toothsome and flavorful at the same time.
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The shining light of sausage muffins, the place that has ousted
McDonalds for a small-but-growing segment of Central Orange County
worker bees, is located in an unlikely strip mall in a completely
anonymous, typical office park.
Choco-Latte (like the Spanish
word for chocolate, get it?) is a Korean-owned coffeeshop that serves
bagels from who-knows-where, various sandwiches and a long list of
espresso drinks. While the bagel makes a good and more calorically dense
sandwich, the muffin is the better choice. They've found containers to
cook the eggs that just barely contain the muffin and the sausage, so when the eggs are ready, they tump the sausage and half the muffin
on top, then flip it out onto the board, add cheese and the other half
of the muffin, and wrap it up so the cheese melts while you carry it.
The
sandwich is, sadly, not cheap: $3.15, while a similar sandwich at
McDonalds clocks in at a little less than two bucks. But when it comes to not
supporting a company that enrages gastronomes worldwide so much that
spittle flecks their righteously indignant cheeks, maybe it's worth it.
Choco-Latte, 840 The City Dr. S., Ste. J, Orange, (714) 663-8144.
