Review: Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s Hillshire Farm Smoked Sausage, Egg & Cheese Biscuit

If I’m going to get up in time for Carl’s Jr. breakfast, I need to get to sleep 2 hours ago, I thought to myself sometime in the dark hours of Thursday morning. I had just finished knocking a few of last week’s shows off the DVR (I’m way behind after a fantastic vacation in Mexico #humblebrag). As I lay my head down, I heard the faintest voice coming from my computer. I couldn’t quite make out the words, so I popped it open. “How about an episode of Shameless?” it whispered. I told myself 50 minutes of naked Emmy Rossum couldn’t hurt. I’ll just set an alarm for 9 and that will give me plenty of time. But I didn’t.

My eyes opened and I immediately rolled over and looked at the time. 10:20, the clock showed, with a most devilish grin. My clock is a real dick. I tried to remember whether Carl’s Jr. serves breakfast until 10:30 or 11, but I couldn’t. I just had to go as quickly as possible and hope for the best. I got in the car at 10:25, still 90% asleep. It’s a wonder that I managed to back out of the driveway without incident. The drive seemed to take hours. I yelled at the red stoplights.

When I finally pulled into the drive-thru, it was exactly 10:30. There were two cars ahead of me. Precious seconds ticked by. The lady before me ordered a Bacon, Egg & Cheese biscuit with no issues. Praise be to Allah! I ordered a Smoked Sausage, Egg & Cheese biscuit with the confidence of a thousand Kanye Wests. The speaker squawked back at me:

“We stop serving breakfast at 10:30.”

My heart sank. “Well what time is it?”

“10:31.”

“Shit. But I’ve been in line for a couple of minutes!” I pleaded.

“Sorry, we don’t have any biscuits left anyway. Is there something else I can get you?”

“No.”

I sat in line for a couple of minutes, stewing. I practiced the death stare I would give when I drove past the window. As the car in front of me pulled out, my heart raced. Will they see the look I give them? Will they be afraid? Will they even know it’s a death stare, or will they think something is wrong with me? Is something wrong with me? Then, a head poked out the window. A man who looked like a manager said, “We do have a couple of biscuits left, but they expired like two minutes ago. Is that okay?” More ecstatic than a costumed geek in line to see Iron Man 3 at 12:01 AM, I replied, “Fine with me!” It was a breakfast miracle! A biscuit at 10:35! Rejoice!

This sandwich had better be amazeballs, I thought. Although, how could it not be? It’s a Hillshire Farm smoked sausage link, egg, and American cheese, on a “Made From Scratch” biscuit. I paid $2.81 for mine ($2.59 sans tax). By the way, these Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s biscuits are fantastic. I think they are less nutritional than particle board with a side of straight bacon grease, but I’ll be damned if they aren’t the bee’s knees.

I was slightly worried by the temperature of this biscuit. Usually these come hotter than Mila Kunis in a Ukrainian forest fire, but since this one was expired it was about as hot as former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, which is to say above room temperature, but not necessarily hot. It would have to do.

I dug in, and by George this sumbitch was delicious. It was evident that the biscuit had been sitting, but it really didn’t matter much. It was still buttery and moist, and a little crisp on the edges. It was not as fluffy as a fresh one, which was the main issue, but again, it wasn’t a big deal. The sausage was a link, sliced lengthwise and grilled, and it was clearly the star of the sandwich. It had so much delicious pig flavor I wanted to cry tears of salty, porcine joy. Grilling it brought out even more flavor and that’s what put this sandwich over the top for me.

The eggs and cheese were very good in their supporting roles. I have no idea if it was real egg or from a mixture, but it seemed good to me. It was light and didn’t have any weird textural issues, so thumbs up for that. As for the cheese, it was melted well, creamy, and it held everything together, which was necessary considering the shape of the sausage.

Put all of that together and you end up with a freaking wonderful breakfast sandwich. I give it a 9/10, a stiff pat on the butt, and a “nice job.” It really was a revelation, but not like the creepy, apocalyptic bible kind, more like the pancakes for dinner or Kate McKinnon on Saturday Night Live kind. Yes, the nutritional facts on this sandwich read more like…I don’t know, something with large numbers. But if you’re in the market for a wonderfully tasty breakfast, this is definitely for you.