As a member of food Tiktok who lives in Melbourne's north, I rarely get to participate in big Foodtok trends that aren't recipe-related. I cannot buy the mini Trader Joe's bags from the US grocery chain and Erewhon smoothies are a long flight away.

So when @francoisedraschler’s video celebrating the crunchiness of the Glenferrie Gourmet Meats chicken nuggets (which has now garnered over half a million views) came up on my FYP, I couldn’t have been happier.

Francoise’s video is captioned, “I might regret sharing this with you, but this is officially my death row meal”. High praise for what is essentially a small chicken schnitzel from a local butcher.

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I called fellow Tiktok obsessive (and Raya owner) Raymond Tan to join me in experiencing the nuggets first-hand. In the heart of Hawthorn’s shopping strip, we spotted an A-frame stating, “Guess the price of your nugget purchase and get it free”. We knew we were in the right place.

Clocked for the Tiktok chumps we are, as soon as we walked in butcher James Saunders greeted us with an enthusiastic, “You’re here for the nuggets”.

Saunders – or “Left-Hand James” as he’s better known – has been working in the shop for 16 years, and immediately started waxing poetic about the chicken nugget lore.

“When I first started, we would hand out chicken nuggets to kids when they came through the shop with their parents, it was part of the experience of coming to the butcher’s,” he says.

The team is constantly frying nuggets, and since Francoise’s Tiktok went viral, has increased production to keep up with the newfound internet fame. “We did 450 kilograms of them last weekend,” Saunders says.

The recipe is simple enough: chicken thighs are seasoned and drenched in a thick milk batter, then coated in fine white breadcrumbs and fried at high temperatures until deep golden brown.

“I can safely say there have been weddings and parties I’ve been invited to because they know I’ll bring trays of nuggets.”

After leaving the store with two plastic bindles of nuggets, we dig in immediately. The verdict? They’re just as described on Tiktok – impossibly crisp with a loud crunch that rivals Doritos. They’re juicy from the seasoned chicken thigh, but crisp from the milk batter and bread crumb.

Viral internet food trends too often disappoint, but this was quite possibly the greatest chicken schnitzel I’ve ever had from a local butcher, and worth the trip to Glenferrie Road.

Plus, if you can guess the weight of your bag of nuggets, they’re on the house.

Watch: You've Tried This Before, Right? Giant Nuggets

Hawthorn’s best-kept secret just went viral. Glenferrie Gourmet Meat’s chicken nuggets are crunchy, golden brown and well worth the hype. But they’ve been making them for over 20 years.You’ve tried this before, right?