Walking from the motel to the convention center last week took me past a bunch of intriguing looking restaurants. I didn’t eat at Mexicano, but the menu looked pretty good.

Then came You Hanoi Me, where I also didn’t eat but looked good. Kiwis are quite happy to go all in on a punny business name.

And then the very promising Route 66 eatery. I studied the menu and decided not to try it on account of one letter ‘s’ (also it was deserted at prime breakfast time).

The missing letter ‘s’ should have been on the end of ‘brown’ , as in ‘hash browns’. For those of you who don’t know, hash browns are made of long thin grated potatoes, maybe with a little onion for flavor, fried in a pile on a pan or griddle. They’re crispy outside and not crispy inside.

Instead, Route 66 serves breakfast with ‘a hash brown’ … meaning the deep fried manufactured frozen potato cake that is nearly universal in NZ. I first had that thing at McDonald’s many years ago. Those hash brown patties are (salty and greasy and) good too, but it’s not part of my Route 66 breakfast mental model.

But don’t worry… I still managed to eat well!