Breakfast sandwiches and croissants are two of the undisputed champions of morning meals. Breakfast sandwiches on croissants rival Croc-shaped waffles on the opposite end of that ranking. Croc-shaped waffles are a terrible idea because I do not want my breakfast shaped like a shoe and because a ‘shoe’ is a fundamentally bad shape for a food that deteriorates with steam and heft. Thankfully, I’ve only heard of one place in the area serving Croc-shaped waffles. Many more make breakfast sandwiches on croissants, and they need to stop.

A good croissant consists of a golden-crisp exterior that shatters and flakes with each bite, contrasting with the soft honeycomb spiral within. The role of the bun portion of a good breakfast sandwich is to turn a knife-and-fork food into a handheld one. A tasty buffer between nerve endings and bacon grease or melted cheese. It is, primarily, a structural cornerstone and sturdy foundation.

Sure, most places building a breakfast sandwich on a croissant aren’t using one of the many top-tier pastries in the city. That helps, because a mediocre croissant lacks that wonderful flake inherent in a good one, and thus generally holds the sandwich together. Even still, it doesn’t work as well as even the most basic other types of bread, because, at the same time, the hot and hearty layers of egg, meat, and hopefully a good slather of sauce, also collapse the croissant’s airy interior, buckling the laminated layers into a greasy glob.

Replacing the standard bun with a seemingly fancier, better pastry seems like it should improve the sandwich as a whole. It doesn’t. Two rights add up to a wrong. As it says in our guide to the city’s best, “Seattle’s breakfast sandwich titans turn to biscuits, bagels, and all manner of English muffins. Even the occasional pretzel challah roll or Japanese-style melonpan.” These are all terrific choices. But putting a breakfast sandwich on a croissant immediately makes the breakfast sandwich and the croissant both worse.