The Tuesday Taste: KFC's Double Down

I have got to find the river

Bergamot and vetiver

Run through my head and fall away

Leave the road and memorize

This life that pass before my eyes

And nothing is going my way

 

Another Tuesday, another Taste! We're back after a week off and apologizes for that (just needed some time to recharge, there has been a lot to deal with here at TT HQ). As such, I'm reviewing an item you could call widely requested of me upon its re-release here in Canada....

Yeah. This thing. This beast.

I reviewed KFC's regular chicken sandwich in one of the very first Tuesday Tastes and was less than impressed. As a child I recall KFC being a delicious treat, something exciting on the rare occasion it was announced "it's KFC for dinner tonight". As I've grown older, either by maturing sense of taste or declining quality of the product... KFC seems to have become quite bland. While I don't love Popeye's (it's got that unsettling greasiness) you at least get some reliable texture and flavour, like you're eating genuine chicken.    

With that in mind, believe me when I say I had no interest in ever reviewing or even eating KFC again after that chicken sandwich back in March. I don't like McDonald's much either but at least you get that distinctive "McDonald's taste" when you order something from there. KFC has as much distinctive flavour as a paper bag left out in the rain.... which on second thought I suppose is rather distinctive so nevermind! I thwarted my own argument through metaphor. I do that sometimes. 

The Double Down sandwich is a monstrosity I'm certain only exists to sell itself upon its own very monstrous nature. I mean seriously, it's a ridiculous idea. Can you imagine the boardroom meeting pitch for this thing? "Hey! Nobody likes bread, right? I mean, it's not like the oldest food in civilization or anything. I've got something that'll change the way people think about sandwiches. We replace the bread... with fried chicken! Ah? Ah?" 

That dude (or dudette) either got fired on the spot or received a gigantic raise. Maybe both? Regardless, this notorious Double Down sandwich first came to Canada around 2010 with much hooplah. Being a young fella in my early 20s and very tuned into "the social media" at the time, it very much seemed like a big occasion at the time. They were selling out everywhere, likely just because of the sheer curiousity induced by the thing. I recall scoffing at the hype, as pretentious 22 year old me often would (34 year old me is far too jaded to scoff, ha) and never got around to trying it during that initial run. The temptation was admittedly strong, I just simply never had a reason or opportunity to.

Well... writing a weekly review of fast food (or whatever you wanna call the TT) sure seems like a reason. If you want to know a little more about the history of the Double Down, check out this short video that, while not particularly enlightening or revealing, gives a decent synopsis of its history. Anyhow, enough of my hooplah... lets get into this... this thing.

My first thoughts are... it's quite a bit smaller than I expected. Probably for the best. As large a man as I am, I don't have particularly large hands (insert joke here) and I can still palm this thing. I blame my skinny forearms. Ha! Seriously though lets get into what you've all clicked onto this article for... 

...the fries! Yeah they're awful. Like, so, so bad. I figured this could be the last time I ever order KFC in my life, might as well review the fries too for completions sake! That sake was a mistake (see what I did there). They taste like they've been sitting out overnight and then microwaved. The texture is tough, rubbery, a stale flavour permeates each bite... there's no crispiness or delightfully subtle exploding potato anywhere. Seriously, some of the absolute worst french fries I've ever had, especially of the thinner cut variety. I'd rather chew on my bike tires after a rainstorm. 

 

 

Okay, enough fooling around. The Double Down itself. You know what? Yeah... it's not good either. Not as bad as their fries, which are so putrid I genuinely don't want potatoes indefinitely after eating them... but the Double Down simply is not an enjoyable eating experience and it goes back to what I said earlier: KFC is so damn bland. 

There isn't anything here to hold it together. We're talking about an absurd idea so crazy it could work, and a place like PG Clucks or Heartbreak Chef here in Toronto could pull it off because their fried chicken is of such a high quality. KFC chicken though... is tough, dry, chewy and has little flavour beyond whatever peppery seasoning they use (11 herbs and spices my ass). The interior of the sandwich is fine, sorta, when there's actual soft give to this beast... but it still tastes like you're just eating two fried and breaded chicken breasts at once which is an odd feeling, to put it objectively. The outside of the sandwich is so, so stale... mine had grill marks (not char, merely imprints) suggesting this was reheated under something like a panini press very quickly without care. 

Conceptually is where this really falls apart for me. The fun of the novelty fades when you realize your fingers are constantly covered in oil and so you have to wipe them after each bite (perhaps eating this "thing" in a wrapper is the ideal way but I had to discard that for the photos). The bigger issue though is what's between these "buns": the cheese and bacon. It just doesn't work. Again, a superior fried chicken place (I really wanna try Chica's fyi, hit me up if you wanna go) could really do something with this absurdity by having excellent cheese and, frankly, peameal bacon would be the way to pull it off. Peameal is leaner, gives the whole thing some textural stability and you still get that bacon decadence you're trying for. 

Nah... instead you get some processed havarti or monterey jack (I appreciate it at least not being generic American cheese slices) that barely melts, alongside undercooked strip bacon. The bacon is barely noticeable, which isn't surprising considering you're eating two f*ing fried chicken breasts at once, while the cheese peels off pathetically, which at least helped compliment chowing down on those rubbery french fries. There's also a sauce slathered into it, sort of a mix between a ranch and a chipotle mayo, and frankly I sampled it many times to try getting a sense but it left little impression.

Overall... I'm gonna surprise you here and say hey! If you haven't tried it, and you are in decent enough health, do it just once. Only. Once. I know, I know... I don't want to feed the hype machine that still churns even a decade later, but it is an interesting experience. Impressively bad and weird is how I would describe it... like a terrible cheap movie so poorly made you can't help but continue along with it. 

Or don't try it. That's likely the better, saner choice. By the way, for something supposedly so heavy and so loaded with fat that health officials were publicly trying to persuade folks not to eat this... it's not even that filling! I was still hungry and I had fries too don't forget. Double Down? Double fail! Ugh... more like that joke failed...

 

Burnt Ends -- I have some ideas on the horizon, beyond some little novel thing I've been thinking about a lot lately and jumping back into. Wrote a couple chapters back in dark January, I just have to slip back into the world of it. Also, if you like Star Trek, check out my review of the (not good) episode of the original 60s series "The Savage Curtain" where Captain Kirk meets Abraham Lincoln! 

Beyond that, I reviewed Friends Burgers out here in the Beaches last week, and I have an idea for an article or two that hopefully will come to fruition in the next few days. Rumours of my demise (as few as they were, surely) were definitely premature. 

 

Norm -- Again, I just spent multiple hours writing about and reviewing a sandwich that this man can summarize in fifteen seconds. RIP to a good one. His jokes seem to get even funnier the more you watch them.

 

Tuesday Tune -- I've been playing more bass guitar lately with a truly dear friend of mine and he has helped me learn this song, by a band I know mostly through their hit singles and random deep cuts. It's simply a wonderful tune and I look forward to playing it again very soon.

 

 That's it for me. As always, be well, be kind, be sharp and don't spill that mustard.