Folks — we may have finally hit peak capitalism thanks to this unholy combination of poultry and pastry
I Tried KFC’s New Doughnut Chicken Sandwich Abomination
Showing posts with label chicken. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chicken. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Sunday, October 27, 2019
I Tried McDonald’s Spicy BBQ Chicken Sandwich
Does the new(ish) fast food burger bring the heat, or is it literally a weak sauce sammich?
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Taco Bell's Cheesy Double Beef and Fritos Beefy Crunch Burritos (RE)-REVIEWED!
Two of the most beloved value menu offerings from Taco Bell have returned - but are the much ballyhooed "fan favorites" as good as our nostalgic recollections have led us to believe?
By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@Jimbo__X
Having written so many articles about Taco Bell menu items, I often find myself wondering just how in the hell I am going to be able to do a product review about the latest and greatest Taco Bell foodstuff without sounding like a broken record (or a scratched CD if you are under the age of 30, or a corrupted MP3 file, if you are under the age of 18.) I mean, there are only so many different ways you can describe a tortilla and its contents, right?
Thankfully, Taco Bell is quite a bit more than just another fast food establishment. Indeed, it is a shining exemplar of American consumerism excess, with a fervid fandom that rivals the intense team loyalty of just about any sports organization. There is unquestionably a "Taco Bell culture," and the social media origins of the returning Beefy Crunch and Cheesy Double Beef Burritos demonstrates both its enormity and passion for all things Bell.
About five years ago, the establishment introduced a $1 sour-cream, beef and rice burrito, which also came loaded with a handful of spicy Fritos chunks. Unsurprisingly, the product proved a smash hit with stoners and broke ass college students across America, but eventually, it was bumped off the main menu to make way for the Bell's grandest marketing blitzkrieg to date - the Doritos Locos Tacos.
So, for most Americans, it has been about five years since they last tasted the Beefy Crunch Burrito. Because we really don't have anything more important to do with our lives than start up petitions to bring back novelty fast food items, a Facebook campaign urging T.B. To resurrect the item eventually grew to 41,000 backers. The leader of the so-called "Beefy Crunch Movement" was so adamant that his favorite fast food provider bring back the item that he even mailed them a 14-page manifesto describing in insane detail why the company ought to bring it back into production.
And - because corporations have a more thorough understanding of the power of social media-borne movements AND the ironic, kooky passions of Generation Bernie - they FINALLY decided to wheel the "fan favorite" product out again. And if that wasn't enough, they even decided to bring back another long-forgotten value-priced item, the Cheesy Double Beef Burrito, at the same rock-bottom price of just-o uno dinero.
As you can no doubt see, the exterior tortilla shells are completely unremarkable. It's just your standard, soft flour wrap, slightly toasted but not enough to make it more crispy than mushy (except, maybe, around the enclosed "folded" pocket corners.) While the recipe should be the same no matter where you pick up the burritos, we must remind ourselves that humans are indeed fallible creatures, so the overall quality of your wrapped comestible will vary. By now, though, you should have a firm idea of which restaurants in your vicinity make the best burritos, and which ones have insanely high turnover rates and are stocked with high school juniors that just don't give a fuck. And yes, one glimpse at the haphazardly constructed pseudo Tex-Mex meal offering on the right ought to tell you PRECISELY the type of personnel staffing the Bell nearest my abode.
Let's start with the Cheesy Double Beef Burrito first, why don't we? For those not in the loop, the product was introduced at the height of the Great Recession as an 89 cent item, and was officially discontinued in 2010 (although I have heard reports that the product, in some locales, was on the menu up until 2012.) As the name implies, the hook here if that you get a double portion of seasoned beef and a shit load of melted cheese (with some rice in between, playing the stratosphere to the troposphere of ground up cow and the mesosphere of congealed udder runoff.)
To be frank (but not this Frank), I really don't have any recollections of the original Cheesy Double Beef Burrito, so yeah, the nostalgia quotient isn't too high for me here. On the whole, it is a fairly serviceable little burrito, although I'm not entirely sure my local Bell really doubled the meat ratio for my $1 item. It's good, I suppose, but honestly, nothing worth writing home about. Speaking of, isn't it about time that colloquialism was replaced with "nothing worth sending an email about?" anyway?
And now we come to the big enchilada (which, technically, isn't an enchilada, but you know what I'm trying to say.) Now, I do vividly recall the Fritos Beefy Crunch Burrito from back in 2011 and eating a whole shit load of them - this, despite the fact that my professed food faith back then was "vegetarian." Hey, when you are a broke-ass junior in college, ain't nobody got time for food ethics, y'know. Of course, anyone with even a cursory understanding of the Fritos Beefy Crunch Burrito can see where the staffers at my nearest Bell royally messed up...
...those no-count motherfuckers used REGULAR Fritos when we all know you have to use those spicy red ones! Needless to say, this spectacular display of ineptness irked me to no end, so after I was down setting fire to the establishment - oh, the things you can get away with when nobody working the late night shift speaks English as a first language - I hauled my ass off to a better Taco Bell affiliate literally a county over. Extreme measures, some may say, but then again, we've been waiting five years for these suckers to make a comeback ... not only is a little arson to be expected, it might as well be encouraged.
Thankfully, the answer there is a big "nope, they sure didn't." Indeed, the relaunched Fritos Beefy Crunch Burritos - when properly assembled by a well-trained and qualified crew - taste EXACTLY the same as it did in our Year of the Lord 2011. Rest assured, obscure fast food menu offering fanatics, T.B took great strides to ensure the historic quality of the product remains intact for its big re-introduction. The tortillas are still hefty and a little pokey (as you would expect from a burrito stuffed fool of fiery corn chips), and the amalgamation of greasy beef and sour cream is just sheer, obesity-baiting perfection. A fast food behemoth that has more or less made its cultural imprint by providing filling, low-cost, weird-ass novelty consumer products, this remains one of the absolute most brilliant - and astonishingly tasty - creations the Almighty Bell has ever produced. And at just one dollar, even the most lumbering lard-asses out there can pound their colons into Tex-Mex submission for less than an Abe Lincoln. Ultimately, the popularity of the product relaunch will determine whether or not the second wave of Fritos Beefy Crunch Burritos is a two-and-done failed experiment, but financial hit or not, I at least hope Team Bell makes an effort to release the offering as a Shamrock Shake\Pumpkin Spice Latte-like seasonal item every Cinco de Mayo. I mean, considering all the Metformin I have to take after spending the last five years reviewing nearly every limited time only product they have hawked to the masses - yes, even the Cap'n Crunch-co-branded cinnamon roll balls - I think that is the absolute LEAST they owe me, and human civilization as a whole.
And if the relaunched burritos wasn't a big enough deal, guess what else Taco Bell decided to roll back out? Consider me tickled pink when I waltzed into my neighborhood Bell and saw a whole slew of these bad boys just hanging out behind the cash register, anxiously awaiting to be stuffed in those little plastic cubby holes next to the sporks and brown paper towels. By now, my adulation for Diablo Sauce is well documented, so I shan't squander too much time restating what everybody with half a brain and quasi-functioning taste buds already know. Rest assured, however, that this stuff is H-O-T (at least a 7 on the "adjusted for white people" Scoville scale), flavorful and the perfect complement to your value-priced nostalgia-ritos. Also, it will make your butthole burn for at least a solid 24 hours, but hey - that's the price you gotta' pay sometimes.
So, to recap? The Cheesy Double Beef thing is just sorta' meh, but a good goddamn, is the Fritos Beefy Crunch Burrito - especially one soaked in the savory, NWO Wolfpack-colored hot sauce - a fantastic little novelty product. And who knows? Perchance the success of the relaunched 'rito will convince the Bell to trot out some of its other long-forgotten offerings. I mean, if Burger King is willing to bring back the motherfucking Yumbo, they at least owe us a L-T-O Bell Beefer, don't they?
Monday, February 15, 2016
I Went to A Kentucky Fried Chicken Buffet...
...and it was awesome.
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@Jimbo__X
In the American South, there is a longstanding stereotype that African Americans absolutely love fried chicken. As long-time readers of The Internet Is In America can tell you, however, this is actually more of a regional, rural birth rite than any sort of ethnoracial qualifier. I come from a long line of Appalachian trailer trash with skin whiter than albino mayonnaise, and my goodness, we ate fried chicken every opportunity we could when I was growing up. Fourth of July, Easter, Thanksgiving ... I'm pretty sure we ordered a bucket of original recipe and mashed potatoes for Christmas once. The Colonel was such a staple of my diet during my formative years that, even at the ripe old age of 30, I'm pretty sure at least half of my DNA is comprised of whatever they put in that delicious, delicious brown gravy.
The thing is, I really don't get an opportunity to slake upon KFC's assorted offerings that often anymore. As far as quick bites, the fast food stalwart doesn't really lend itself well to always-on-the-go junk food (and junk culture) consumers such as myself. The containers are bulky, the food is greasy, it leaves bones all over the place, you have to work with all those damn lids, so on and so forth. It's tasty, to be sure, but at Taco Bell or Burger King, all I have to do is peel back a paper wrapper, chew, and occasionally shat out some turquoise-colored after-meal. The Colonel, by contrast, makes you work a little for your calories, and by golly, I need those precious, squandered minutes to do more important things with my life, like write about Robocop cartoons from the 1980s.
But lo and behold, I recently stumbled across something that made me view KFC in an entirely different light. Before we begin, however, a quick primer on the geography of metro Atlanta is necessary. About 90 percent of the city proper rests in Fulton County, a 1 million person-plus, backwards California-shaped swath that stretches for about 530 square miles from Chattahoochee Hills a half hour south of Atlanta all the way to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains damn near an hour north of the ATL. The county is bifurcated by Atlanta, with the southern portion of the county by and large home to economically-disadvantaged African Americans and the northern portion of the county by and large home to rich white and Asian motherfuckers.
With a population nearing 100,000 people, Roswell is one of the larger north Atlanta 'burbs, and with an average annual household income stretching well beyond $100K, it's also one of the wealthiest. By and large, it's an utterly unremarkable town, one of those shitty Southern locales that's 90 percent subdivisions and half-filled strip malls, but because they've got a lot of parks and really overpriced downtown restaurants, they tend to think they're a lot better than they really are. Oh, and their mayor is racist as fuck. That probably needs to be mentioned somewhere.
Alas, beyond the ungodly traffic near Georgia 400 and all of the monuments to slave owners, you will find at least one jewel in the proverbial dumpster. Folks, Roswell is home to an all-you-can-eat KFC buffet.
Conducting subsequent research, I discovered specialty restaurants of the sort - in the same vein as this Chick-fil-A buffet - aren't all that aberrational. In fact, there are quite a few KFC buffets throughout the metro Atlanta area but by golly, this was the first such location my peepers had ever seen. So, what is it actually like to waltz into the place, plop down $8.29 USD and go to town on some biscuits and mashed taters? Well, let's take a photographic journey, why don't we?
Which brings us to the drink fountain. All in all, it is pretty much what you would expect. In keeping with Yum! Brands tradition, all of the offerings are Pepsi-branded. And perhaps appealing to the region's growing Hispanic audience, the fountain also offered apple-flavored soda, which is definitely NOT something you'd see at most establishments with a high clientele quotient of uppity white folks.
...unfortunately, I didn't get to try out the delicious-looking apple-cola because the goddamn thing was unplugged. Yes, that's right, they turned off the fountain just in time for the evening rush, so the only thing I could pour down my throat hole was good old fashioned agua.
The buffet itself was broken up into salad offerings, sides and desserts and, of course deep-fried poultry. All in all, it was a rather unremarkable set-up, although the stickers kinda' made up for its abject normalness.
As far as the veggie offerings go, you had the standard shredded lettuce, onions, coleslaw, carrots and corn. Probably the weirdest thing here was the inclusion of sliced up cranberry jam, which to me, doesn't exactly feel like the kind of thing you want sandwiched in between your original recipe chicken and a gravy soaked biscuit. And speaking of gravy...
As for the chicken buffet itself? Well, seeing as how I stopped by right when it was closing, the pickings ... to say the least .... were slim. As in, the only thing that was left were the crispy remnants of thighs, legs and breasts patrons gobbled up two hours earlier.
You know, there sure are a lot of food snobs out there, especially in the metro Atlanta environs. Just two miles away from this very KFC restaurant there is this thing called Canton Street, which is home to a bunch of ritzy "independent" restaurants that are actually heavily financed by the city's downtown development authority (so much for local governments not picking winners and losers in commerce, no?) All of those crypto-racist, gentrification-and-"walkability"-loving', poor-people-hatin' suburban supremacists can keep their $93 hamburgers and microscopic portions of filet mignon, 'cause I'd much rather kick back, toss down $9 and eat plate after plate of delicious, deep fried chicken with REAL working class Americans. Not only is it a less pretentious and more cost-efficient dining experience, I am damn CONVINCED that the quality of food here is superior to whatever you'd find at those neo-yuppie haunts, anyway.
So what more can I say? For less than it takes to pick up a DVD, you can slake upon as much macaroni, rice, brown gravy, bean paste and poultry as you want, and it is fantastic. Really, one has to wonder why more restaurants do not offer similar services - I mean, who wouldn't want to visit a Taco Bell buffet? That's right, nobody alive.
In all seriousness though, visit this place and its kindred. The heart and soul of any small or midsize city isn't in its synthetic, government-subsidized downtown districts, but in the small franchisees in the pothole-strewn parts of town where the lights don't work half the time. Not only are you subjecting yourself to some extremely decadent comfort food goodness, you are also helping support the true working class and sending a big, fat, hearty "eff you" to the crony capitalist elites.
I'm still not sure what the famed "seven herbs and spices" are supposed to be, but at this restaurant in the northern 'burbs, I'm pretty sure there's an eighth in every biscuit and drumstick: proletariat pride, and by God, that's something you owe yourself a taste of every now and then.
With a population nearing 100,000 people, Roswell is one of the larger north Atlanta 'burbs, and with an average annual household income stretching well beyond $100K, it's also one of the wealthiest. By and large, it's an utterly unremarkable town, one of those shitty Southern locales that's 90 percent subdivisions and half-filled strip malls, but because they've got a lot of parks and really overpriced downtown restaurants, they tend to think they're a lot better than they really are. Oh, and their mayor is racist as fuck. That probably needs to be mentioned somewhere.
Alas, beyond the ungodly traffic near Georgia 400 and all of the monuments to slave owners, you will find at least one jewel in the proverbial dumpster. Folks, Roswell is home to an all-you-can-eat KFC buffet.
First things first, the exterior and interior of the building is rather unremarkable. In fact, if it wasn't for the gigantic metal buffet line, it would be completely indistinguishable from all of the other KFC restaurants out there.
The set-up was EXTREMELY low-tech. Expecting ceramic plates, a'la Golden Corral? That's elitist bullshit, here at the KFC buffet you have to eat off flimsy plastic trays and honest-to-goodness STYROFOAM plates. And as someone who is well versed in economical household goods, I can almost guarantee you these are the Dollar Tree plate-bowls, too.
Folks, the sides-section is reason enough to visit the restaurant. You get a mountain of mashed potatoes, BOTH kinds of gravy (the smoky, smooth brown sauce and the chunky, milky white variety) and if that wasn't enough, a delicious macaroni jambalaya, too. I'm not sure if it's a KFC diktat or some improvisation from the employees (about half and half Hispanic and African-American), but the beans and rice definitely stood out. The frijoles were embedded with slivers of jalapeño, while the rice had chunks of maize in it, with just a hint of Southwestern seasoning. All in all, it was a downright awesome syncretism of Southeastern soul food and South of the Border home cooking, and it is worth going out of your way to experience. Well, if you live kinda' close by, anyway.
Eh, and what about the desserts? You are in luck, amigo, because that evening, there was a giant aluminum foil tray filled with peach cobbler, topped by a super-sugary layer of frosting. In an unrelated note, I have no idea why obesity rates in the Southland are so much higher than other parts of the country, either.
However, the folks behind the counter were gracious enough to hand me as much fried and grilled chicken from those giant industrial ovens as I wanted. To the franchisers in Roswell, I just want you to know that your crew - as of mid Jan. 2016 - were fucking awesome and everything a fast food crew ought to be. They were prompt, considerate and very friendly, and they didn't even ask any questions when I stuck my camera under the sneeze guard to take up-close photos of the drumsticks. Not all fast food employees deserve $15 an hour, but in my book, the guys and gals at THIS Kentucky Fried Chicken establishment absolutely deserve it.
You know, there sure are a lot of food snobs out there, especially in the metro Atlanta environs. Just two miles away from this very KFC restaurant there is this thing called Canton Street, which is home to a bunch of ritzy "independent" restaurants that are actually heavily financed by the city's downtown development authority (so much for local governments not picking winners and losers in commerce, no?) All of those crypto-racist, gentrification-and-"walkability"-loving', poor-people-hatin' suburban supremacists can keep their $93 hamburgers and microscopic portions of filet mignon, 'cause I'd much rather kick back, toss down $9 and eat plate after plate of delicious, deep fried chicken with REAL working class Americans. Not only is it a less pretentious and more cost-efficient dining experience, I am damn CONVINCED that the quality of food here is superior to whatever you'd find at those neo-yuppie haunts, anyway.
So what more can I say? For less than it takes to pick up a DVD, you can slake upon as much macaroni, rice, brown gravy, bean paste and poultry as you want, and it is fantastic. Really, one has to wonder why more restaurants do not offer similar services - I mean, who wouldn't want to visit a Taco Bell buffet? That's right, nobody alive.
In all seriousness though, visit this place and its kindred. The heart and soul of any small or midsize city isn't in its synthetic, government-subsidized downtown districts, but in the small franchisees in the pothole-strewn parts of town where the lights don't work half the time. Not only are you subjecting yourself to some extremely decadent comfort food goodness, you are also helping support the true working class and sending a big, fat, hearty "eff you" to the crony capitalist elites.
I'm still not sure what the famed "seven herbs and spices" are supposed to be, but at this restaurant in the northern 'burbs, I'm pretty sure there's an eighth in every biscuit and drumstick: proletariat pride, and by God, that's something you owe yourself a taste of every now and then.
Monday, January 25, 2016
Taco Bell's EVEN NEWER Crunchwrap Sliders!
I hope you like semi-spicy, junk-food-laden Hot Pockets variations with contents that resemble vomit!
Even when Taco Bell isn't that great, it's still fairly enjoyable. Granted, the products have a tendency to run together due to their textural and mouthfeel similarities - if you told me to describe the difference between a Sriracha Quesarito and a Daredevil Loaded Griller (any of those motherfuckers), I don't think I could - but who cares if everything on the menu is fairly indistinguishable? What matters is that the Bell, even at their lowest level, is still affordable, filling and gustatorily satisfying enough to warrant indiscriminate nom after indiscriminate nom. Their almost-monthly product variations may not be getting any points for originality, but they score plenty of points when it comes to consistency.
When I first started working on this article, I totally forgot that I had already covered the first wave of Crunchwrap Sliders last year. As such, I assumed that I was ordering four all-new products, but in reality, just two of the Sliders you can pick up at the Bell in early 2016 are original items. So if you are wondering about the quality of the two returning offerings - which are modeled after breastaurant sampler menu favorites, thematically - do yourself a favor and click this link right ' chere.
The Sliders themselves are pretty interesting little menu offerings. They aren't quite burritos, but you can't really call them tostados, either. Instead, they remain in this weird fast food interphase, as if a quesadilla and an enchilada were locked inside the teleportation machine from The Fly. That they come in paper pouches more befitting bread sticks just adds to their offbeat uniqueness.
Aesthetically, they ain't much to look at. They are just slightly toasted tortillas wrapped up in a pseudo-pentagon shape, with a whole bunch of weird shit sealed inside them. They are fairly bulky, though, and their misshapen forms - you ever try to wrap up chunks of chicken and Frito's without the end outcome looking bumpy? - give the Sliders a certain eccentric charm.
As far as our new dining options are concerned, we've got two new items to chew on. First, let's take a gander at the Sriracha Chicken Crunchwrap Slider, why don't we?
Fortunately, although the product may look like diarrhea spray squirted all over a soft taco shell, the product itself is pretty yummy. This is definitely one of the spiciest Taco Bell products to come out in a long time, with the molten-cheese-soaked beef and Fritos chunks doused in a savory, smoky, Jalapeño ranch dressing that I am pretty sure the company has never trotted out before. Sure, it is no Lava Sauce, but it definitely does the trick. Overall, this thing may be nothing more than just a slight tweaking of a pre-existing product, but hey; at least it is one hell of a re-tweaking, no?
When it comes to drive-thru dining, looks and originality are both vastly overrated. While other fast food giants try to church up their line-up with pretentious, overpriced "premium" offerings, the Bell continues to excel in economical, on-the-go nomming, with these latest Sliders demonstrative of the franchise's formulaic greatness. They may not be the prettiest or most creative foodstuffs out there, but ultimately? I reckon I'll vouch for such satisfying, cost-effective sameness over pricey, ostentatious "innovation" any day of the week.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
You Can Now Eat an Atlanta Falcons Sub at Publix.
Will the limited-time-only peach-flavored chicken sandwich make you want to 'rise up' or throw up?
By: Jimbo X
@Jimbo__X
Although I am -- and have been -- an Oakland/Los Angeles/San Antonio(?) Raiders fan my entire life, my de facto "B-team" so to speak has always been the Atlanta Falcons. This is reasonable enough, I suppose, considering the fact that I've spent nearly three decades of my existence residing within the boundaries of the Peach State.
Atlanta Falcons fans are a peculiar breed, to be sure. In a city overrun with transplants, the Falcons are more or less viewed as nothing more than a way for all the neo-carpetbaggers to see their favorite teams from up north and out west live and in living color. Of course, there are indeed homegrown Falcons fans, but they are few and far between, and really, those people are much more inclined to be rabid Georgia Bulldogs fans, or a fan of one of the neighboring SEC squads. There seems to be this weird Boca Juniors/River Plate, Guadalara Chivas/America rivalry going on between UGA and all of Atlanta's teams (college or pro) in which the Southern metropolis (and its corresponding NFL franchise) embodies modern excess and "the selling out" of regional identity, while the quaint little college football powerhouse up in Athens embodies the true spirit of the proletariat, working class Southern man.
So, who is the true Atlanta Falcons fan? Well, the true Atlanta Falcons fan is usually in his forties or fifties (although there are quite a few hardcore fans in their 20s. If you've ever seen Snow in tha Bluff, you'll know EXACTLY the types I'm talking about. By and large, he has white hair (or a receding hairline), and a beer belly, even though he's otherwise skinny. He either lives in one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the city proper (Castleberry, East Lake Meadows or, god help your mortal soul, Vine City or English Avenue) or one of the many indistinguishable, beaten down 'burbs just outside the city limits (places with names like Rockdale, Douglasville and Fayetteville.) He usually hates his job, he hates himself and he's behind on child support payments. If he doesn't have a truck, he used to, and he prefers getting his hair cut at this one no-name barber shop that he doesn't mind driving or MARTA-ing 20 miles out of his way to visit. And even then, he complains about the slow service when he gets there.
The actual Atlanta Falcons fan is a weird goulash of desperate blue collar proletariat and unabashed Southern bigot, no matter what color he is. As much as he hates the racial other, he hates all of them damn neo-carpetbaggers even more. He especially hates anybody from New Orleans, if not because they are de facto representatives of the Saints, then because they still get federal incentives they don't qualify for and first dibs at public housing (which is fewer and further in between these days.)
These are the kinds of people who still wear Michael Vick black and red jerseys in public and challenge people to fist fights at sports bars if they say anything bad about career drunk driver Jamal Anderson. That is, if they feel like walking that far. Or leaving the house. Which they don't, for the most part.
But more than anything, this rare, rare bird of the Piedmont variety loves to eat grocery store deli product. Go ahead, find yourself a Falcons fan, and they'll talk your ear off about why Kroger's fried chicken is better than Wal-Mart's (it's the fried okra, it's always the fried okra) and why Target, for lack of a better word, sucks the big one (once again, it probably has something to do with the substandard fried okra.)
That's why I wasn't surprised one iota when I waltzed into the local Publix and saw this thing sticking on the electronic sliding glass door entrance...
An NFL-flavored sandwich, you don't say? Clearly, this idea has some legs to it. As it turns out, Publix actually offers three more NFL-branded sammiches for the three Florida pro-football teams, which -- not unlike their play this season -- I can assume probably suck.
It's a weird combination of ingredients, to be sure, but then again, this is the South, where we actually fuckin' sell and buy fried brownies. In public. And nobody says anything about it. Really, eating a sub smothered in peach jam and bacon is probably one of our saner local delicacies, now that I think about it a bit.
For those of you doubting the sincerity of such an invention, well, there's the big, bold, barcoded truth that it ain't a fabrication. I guess you could call this thing a footlong, although I'm not quite sure how geometrically accurate that wording actually is. I mean, it's probably closer to 10 inches, and the meat itself tends to stop at the 8.5 inch marker. The 9 inch, if you are lucky and the sandwich artisan is feeling awfully generous that afternoon.
So, what all do you get with this NFC South-themed sub? Well, you get a pretty decent white roll, but as far as advertised ingredients, that's all I received. You know how uptop, the sign says you get maple-flavored chicken tenders? Well, the dude at my local store just grabbed a handful of fried chicken pieces from the rotisserie pit, crumbled them up and said "eh, good enough." This shit was about as maple-flavored as a Tijuana tostada, which, in case you weren't aware, isn't very maple-flavored at all.
While my deli man completely deviated from the promotional formula, I reckon his ghetto-concoction was way better than anything that could have been mass produced, anyway. His idea of srirachi mayonnaise was literally slathering mayonnaise on the bun and then squirting some hot sauce on top of the white goop. And he used some damn peach preservative all right -- with a bottle of store-branded peach jam.
Even the bacon was pure-D trailer park home cooking. The dude took a handful of that instant pork junk, slammed the plastic microwave door shut and nuked the shit for all of a minute and a half before pulling out a sizzling plate of bacon with salty white foam bubbling out of it like someone had just thrown the bacon Necronomicon into a furnace or something. As someone who grew up poor and fat in the American South, I can assure you this is just about the most authentic regional cuisine you're bound to find anywhere.
Sure, the Falcons sub was a bit on the gross side, but there is no denying that it wasn't filling. It was nearly impossible to hold with one hand, and moving the sandwich just one centimeter out of whack caused three or four chicken tenders to fall out and/or a weird amalgam of mayonnaise, chili sauce and preservative-soaked peach jam to drip all over the floor. In short, it was the perfect foodstuff to symbolize the team and its oft-misunderstood fan base -- a big, bulky, unorthodox and salty tribute to the last of a dying breed of regional roustabouts and lifelong gentrification victims.
If they ain't selling overpriced simulacrums of this limited-time-only delicacy when that newfangled Mercedes-Benz Stadium opens in 2017, I for one, will be pissed a plenty.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Taco Bell's All New Quesarito!
Is it a burrito, or a quesadilla, or simply a rolled up slice of heaven?
It's clear that Taco Bell views Chipotle as a major threat to the U.S.-ified Tex Mex fast food chain hierarchy. First, there was their line of gourmet tacos and burritos that looked and tasted suspiciously identical to Chipotle's much ballyhooed rolled up and bowled foodstuffs. Then, there was the Bell's announcement that it was going to open up its own line of higher-scale fast food eateries, whose MO sounds pretty much identical to Chipotle. And now, taking this rivalry to almost Bloods vs. Crips proportions, Taco Bell has fired what may very well be the fast food taco chain equivalent of the shelling of Fort Sumter: they've actually went and MASS MARKETED the competitor's off-the-menu urban legend!
The Quesarito, historically, has been known as a "secret" item that select Chipotle chains across the U.S. offered to customers who were in the know about furtive fast food offerings. Basically, a "quesarito" was a standard quesadilla, melted cheese and all, wrapped 360 degrees around a burrito. Sure, it sounds gross at first, but after a while, the inherent deliciousness of the concept strikes you. It may very well be the most ingenious way of making people fatter since the advent of the fried brownie, in my humblest of opinions.
I've tried ordering a quesarito a few times at various Chipotle stores, but always to no avail. With T-Bell riding high off their super-awesome breakfast menu blitzkrieg, I suppose they figured now was a good time to continue the offensive strategy, this time by defictionalizing their number one competitor's most mythical menu item!
Indeed, the items are EXACTLY what you'd expect them to be. They're semi-gourmet burritos -- topped off by your choice of meat -- blanketed by a thick, gooey tortilla wearing molten cheese like warpaint. I'm guessing the universe as a whole is split, 50-50, on whether or not that's the most salivating idea ever, or the absolute freaking grossest.
Currently, the Bell is offering three variations of the Quesarito. We'll take a look at the steak permutation first -- primarily, because that was the first one I opened up.
As you can see for yourself, we've got quite the medley of flavors going on here. There's cheddar cheese, some wild rice, some sour cream and a smidge of chipotle sauce, alongside the sinewy chunks of dead steer. Of the three variations, this was probably the least bold in terms of flavor; for fast food adventurers who don't like any surprises, this is probably your best bet heading into the Great Quesarito-Off of 2014.
Next up is the beef version. As expected, it was extremely greasy, even on the outside of the tortilla. Of the three, it definitely felt the lightest.
I'd have to say this was my least favorite of the trio. For one, it didn't feel as if there was anywhere near as much rice chunked into the 'rito, and the overall cheese and sour cream quotient felt pretty low, too. Nobody will ever hail Taco Bell for having the best ground beef in the world, so however you feel about it in normal Bell offerings will probably swing your overall impression of this item.
The shredded chicken Quesarito was definitely the heaviest of the three permutations, and smelled the weirdest, too. It almost smelled like Texas Pete, but then again, I guess anytime you combine poultry with chipotle sauce, that shit's going to end up smelling like hot sauce, no matter what.
This one was probably my favorite, because there appeared to be way more sour cream and sauce tossed into the goulash. I've never been a big fan of chicken, but this one certainly outdid both the steak and beef versions. The nacho cheese also seemed to gel the best with this one: overall, I'd say this is probably the best way to experience the Quesarito...that is, until the Bell inevitably wheels out their special Doritos Locos Tacos Quesarito. With chunks of grounded up waffle taco in it.
All in all, I thought Taco Bell's stab at Quesaritoes wasn't half-bad. They probably won't become anybody's favorite menu item, and their longevity as an offering is definitely suspect, but as a quick meal, circa July 2014? These things will do you quite well, especially if you are already fat, really sweaty, and not just giving a damn about most things anymore. Which, I know, is pretty much everybody reading this right now.
The big question now, I reckon, is obvious: will Chipotle strike back by trotting out THEIR version of the much-requested old school Taco Bell enchirito this autumn?
Stay tuned, fast food Tex-Mex enthusiasts: things are starting to get very interesting around these parts...
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