Your “Breakfast Meat Cornucopia” Is Profoundly Lacking

I’ll just come right out and say it: I’m sorely disappointed.

I was told by a friend—a friend who is now himself suspect—that the “Breakfast Meat Cornucopia” offered at Fiery Fred’s Wok ‘N’ Grill was “a feast unrivaled in all of Christendom,” a bounty that helped to put Fiery Fred on the map.

And yet, here it sits before me in all its underwhelming glory. Sufficient? One would not be wholly wrong in calling it that. Ample? I don’t think anyone with even the simplest grasp of the language would feel right in labeling it such. It’s certainly not overabundant. And it is definitely not—even in a psychotic’s imagination—a cornucopia. In fact, I further suggest that you list the dish from henceforth with the word “cornucopia” in quotation marks.

Look at the haphazard way it’s presented: a pile of greasy bacon strips here, a pepper-flecked turkey-sausage patty there, some sort of half-hearted beef hash plopped in the center of the plate offering up all the dynamism of an in-flight meal or a plastic tray of movie-theater nachos. That I can still see the exposed incisors in the smiling and grotesque caricature of Fiery Fred that adorns the plate says it all.

Still, I must vocalize my discontent.

My fine fellow, if this were Alistair Munch-A-Lot’s Breakfast Bonanza, a dish with the word “cornucopia” in its name would start with an actual cornucopia, one hand-woven of the finest reeds by an authentic local witch-doctor. It would involve an almost staggering amount of free-range beef and pork products—possibly chicken if the mood struck right—all cooked to glistening perfection by a seasoned chef, then rammed deep within that horn of plenty until said vessel was literally bursting forth with mouthwatering breakfast meats. But—then!—the coup de grâce: a garnish of horseradish flowers and a smooth and spicy avocado dressing!

Delicious? Indeed. And that, my friend, would do justice to the perennial symbol of prosperity and abundance, quite unlike this half-assery that is so quickly cooling before me, its congealing juices of mediocrity a testament to your restaurant’s failure and deceit. I doubt the chef even knows how to spell “avocado.”

I suppose it was naïve of me to expect anything else from such a niggardly establishment as this. I can assure you this is the first and last time that I . . . that I . . .

Whoa, give me a second.

OK. Call an ambulance. I’m having another heart attack.