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Ten fast food mash-ups that take it to the limit

Callan Boys
Callan Boys

The KFC Zinger taco: Enough of a mash-up to become the next double down?
The KFC Zinger taco: Enough of a mash-up to become the next double down?Supplied

In the tradition of the "Zinger pie" and "double down dog", KFC Australia launched a Zinger Taco on June 16. Not just any taco, mind, but a double-shelled number involving a soft tortilla wrapping a hard taco shell and "supercharged" sauce slathered in between.

It's actually not the worst idea as the soft taco contains the wayward shards of its hard counterpart when you crunch into it, but whether it's enough of a "frankenfood" to become an internet sensation like the Double Down (that's bacon and cheese sandwiched between two original recipe chicken fillets) is debatable.

The days of slapping pineapple on something and calling it Hawaiian are over. Here are 10 fast-food mash-ups that have taken it to the limit of the crust and beyond.

Pizza Hut's Four'n Twenty pizza. A long way from the cheese-only stuffed crust of the '90s.
Pizza Hut's Four'n Twenty pizza. A long way from the cheese-only stuffed crust of the '90s.Supplied
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Four'N Twenty stuffed-crust pizza, Pizza Hut Australia

A long way from the cheese-only stuffed crust of the '90s, the recent meat pie pizza takes the cronut for most out-there crust ever (see also hot dog, cheeseburger and Vegemite crusts). When the time comes for whole chickens to be stuffed into pizzas, it's time to start looking for a new home planet.

Flying fish roe salmon cream cheese pizza, Pizza Hut Hong Kong

Hong Kong's answer to the Vegemite pizza is stuffed with fish eggs and topped with clams, scallops, crayfish and shrimp.

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Ramen burger, New York

One of the original frankenfoods to capture the public's clogged arteries debuted in New York in 2013 and has since spawned imitators across the globe. Some food mash-ups you can understand how they came to be. A croissant and donut crossover? That kind of makes sense. This thing defies all logic.

Double down dog, KFC Philippines

A hot dog from The Colonel is weird. A hot dog from The Colonel wrapped in a cheese-stuffed chicken breast makes mashed potato wrapped in devon look edible.

The mega tamago double mac, McDonald's Japan

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Essentially a double-sized Big Mac with egg and bacon. Fast-food fans have long known that if you're lucky enough to be at The Golden Arches at the McWitching hour of 10.30am, the breakfast menu changes to lunch and you can order a cheeseburger with a Sausage McMuffin sausage. It is very good. This takes that concept and multiplies it by ridiculous.

The Zinger pie, KFC Australia

The best thing about the Zinger pie was always buying one from the the KFC store at Broadway in Sydney, taking it down the road to Harry's Cafe de Wheels, and asking them to make a Zinger tiger with mashed potato and mushy peas for a frankenfood bonanza.

NY pizza burger, Burger King US

Cheeseburgers in a pizza crust are all well and good (actually, they're not) but this calorific behemoth containing pepperoni, mozzarella, pesto and marinara sauce takes the idea and turns it on its big fat head.

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Windows 7 Whopper, Burger King Japan

Damn straight that's a Whopper stacked with seven patties to promote the launch of Windows 7. "Combining one type of fast food with another? Pfft. Child's play. We're combining burgers with operating systems over here."

Sausage and BBQ sandwich, Subway Japan

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This guy was offered in the Japanese summer of 2013, and was simply a standard-issue salad sub with what the sandwich artists call "coarsely ground juicy sausage". Does anyone else find it odd that a meatball sub is acceptable but the notion of a Subway hot dog feels weirder than walking down an escalator that isn't moving?

The waffle taco, Taco Bell US

It's hard to get into the breakfast market if you're a taco joint unless you start making tacos out of waffles (KFC take a taco note). Sadly, the waffle taco was replaced in 2015 with a "biscuit taco" that looks like a Sausage and Egg McMuffin folded into a calzone.

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Callan BoysCallan Boys is editor of SMH Good Food Guide, restaurant critic for Good Weekend and Good Food writer.

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