An American TikTok food critic recently shared his candid assessment of the classic Full English breakfast after trying it for the first time, a review that has stirred up strong reactions among Brits.
With a massive following of nearly 17 million on TikTok, Keith Lee has established a successful presence by posting videos of his culinary adventures and taste tests from various regions across the globe.
During his current visit to the UK, he has been sampling a range of local eateries and dishes, piquing the interest of British audiences eager to know his opinions.
But after sharing a video on the social platform over the weekend of him trying a traditional English breakfast, scores of British viewers were left fuming.
Starting his video, which has garnered 9.5 million views on TikTok, Lee tells his followers that he is staying in a hotel in London and has ordered a Full English breakfast.
The traditional morning meal, also known to Brits as a ‘fry up’ typically includes bacon, eggs, sausages, baked beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, toast and black pudding and hash browns.
Showing a snippet of his plate, Lee says: ‘At first glance, to me it looks like a normal breakfast. But the longer you look at it, the more things that I don’t recognize start becoming apparent’.
Taking a mouthful of the scrambled eggs first, he says: ‘Its sauteed well, It’s egg. Its cooked very well in my opinion, too’.
The critic gives the scramble a six out of ten rating, before moving onto the next food item.
He goes for the hash brown next, which is also eaten in America.
As he chews on the crispy potato dish, he notes that it is ‘reminiscent’ to hash browns served in McDonald’s, but he says that ‘its a lot greasier and a lot less salty’ than the ones he has tasted before.
He puts the rest of his hash brown down and gives it a four out of 10 rating.
‘This is where it starts getting different’, he says as he scoops up a forkful of baked beans and slabs it onto a slice of buttered toast.
‘The bread is definitely stale’ he says, seemingly struggling to chew on his food.
Lee points out that the beans taste like they are ‘bathed in ketchup…and a very sweet ketchup too’.
He adds that the texture is ‘mushy’, before highlighting how ‘there’s no flavour other than, like I said, a sweet ketchup. No salt, no seasoning’.
‘In my opinion this is extremely low. One out of 10’, he says.
Next, he tries the mushroom.
Picking up the fungi with his hands to show viewers makes a point of how different the mushroom looks.
‘As a mushroom lover I’m not sure this is what its supposed to look like, or I’m just not familiar with the type of mushroom it is’.
After taking a bite of the fried vegetable, he nonchalantly says: ‘Its just a mushroom’.
‘I don’t feel like they did anything to it. Its just a mushroom…I’m not gonna rate it’.
When trying the sausage, he dejectedly implies that the food item has a bland taste.
‘It don’t really taste like anything but pork to me.
‘I was expecting like sage or herbs. But to me, I don’t really taste anything. Just pork, and I’m not a huge fan’, he says, before giving it a score of four.
He leaves the dish’s most controversial component – black pudding – to the end.
Black pudding, or blood sausage, is made from blood, fat and oats and different seasonings.
It is considered a controversial food item due to the fact it is made of pig blood – a factor that might be off-putting to some people. Meanwhile, some consider it a delicacy.
‘I’m going to go completely non biased’, Lee says before tasting the divisive black pudding.
‘I know this is something different and this is something new. I’m just going to just try it’, he says.
But the critic quickly gets up to spit out the breakfast staple, noting that it it ‘immediately it tastes like blood’.
‘It tastes like iron. I’ve had liver and things that taste like iron so it wasn’t the iron taste that kinda threw me off. The chunks of other things is extremely unsettling for me
‘I fully understand that’s an acquired taste that people enjoy…I haven’t acquired that taste – zero out of 10’.
The video sent several Brits into a flurry, with several defending their beloved English breakfast.
The main point made by viewers was that Lee had picked the wrong place to try the dish.
‘Hotel breakfast is different. Please go to a cafe’, one viewer commented on the video.
Another said: ‘Everyone knows to NOT go to these fancy places for a REAL English breakfast! Its always the cafes that do it well’.
‘London hotes is where food goes to die. Get out to the small restaurants’, a third noted.
Brits will often enjoy their Full English at their ‘cafe’ or ‘greasy spoon’ – the British equivalent of an American diner. Eating the traditional breakfast at a cafe is often considered better because customers will be served a hearty and fresh home cooked meal.
Other viewers slammed the TikToker for being too critical about the English dish.
‘I feel like you are deliberately being difficult with English food now’, one user commented.
Another pointed out that he had failed to do his research before trying the traditional dish.
‘Why would you do England like that?! That’s like going to America as a food reviewer and ordering burger and fries from a hotel room’, the viewer said.
