After a year of trying every restaurant on Lincoln Rd, author Steve Braunias has realised the genius of Burger King's chicken fries, and found no fast food joint is the same.
"This is one of the truths I learned, that the franchise is only as good as the franchisee," he told The AM Show on Thursday.
The Coffee Club is another example of great management, he says. "You go in there and you feel special."
Mr Braunias has writtenThe Man Who Ate Lincoln Rd, detailing his fast-food quest on the west Auckland main road, which sees about 45,000 cars a day.
"I was struck by the fact it's only 3km in length and it has 55 food joints on it - we're talking McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, the whole lot.
"And I thought wow, this is basically the national cuisine. Why don't I eat at each and every one of them in a single year and go home to write about it," he says.
"People are going there and I was fascinated by that too, that it was so popular.
"What are they flocking to? Partly it's to get somewhere else, but, all those food joints - people are going there because they really like this kind of food.
"It's really good food. This book is a celebration and it asks questions that we actually do ask ourselves about food. What's better: chicken nuggets at McDonald's or the chicken fries at Burger King?"
The best McDonald's meal he says is the Bacon and Egg McMuffin with a hash brown and a cup of coffee.
"But of course last year they made the audacious decision to have the all-day breakfast. I'm ambivalent about that one - there was always a sort of great pleasure in beating the 10:30am deadline as it was.
"Now you get it any time of day - the thrill is gone.
He says the most truly awful place he came across was St Pierres Presents Sushi of Japan.
"I mean the very name doesn't make a lick of sense, does it? And a missing apostrophe is a shocker."
And while the new outlet Texas Chicken looks very promising, the journalist rates the Nandos chicken as "immaculate".
Newshub.
