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Slimy New KFC Menu ItemKentucky Grilled Chicken and Arby’s RoastburgerWhat's new? What's great? What's weird? Our columnist samples offerings from supermarket aisles and fast-food menus. |
By: KFC
I Paid: $12.99 for an eight-piece bucket (prices may vary by region)
Apparently KFC has finally realized that most people consider its products to be heart attacks in a tub, and is marketing its new Kentucky Grilled Chicken as a healthy alternative. The tag line is “Unthink what you thought about KFC.” Kind of weird—is it a poor attempt to play off of Apple’s “Think Different”?
Anyway. Yes, the grilled chicken is healthier (80 calories and 4 grams of fat per grilled wing, versus 110 calories and 7 grams of fat per an original Colonel’s wing). But what you get in return is surprisingly greasy, dramatically underseasoned, low-grade-tasting chicken meat, possessing little of the carbon-kissed flavor one associates with grilling. In fact, Kentucky Grilled Chicken tastes as though it’s been steamed for an extremely long time and then reluctantly dragged across a grill long enough to produce some anemic grill marks—assuming they’re not merely painted on.
But the worst part is the sliminess. Before wraps entered the general lexicon, fried chicken—along with pizza—was the ultimate hand-held food. Sit around with a bunch of people in a park or in the car, grab a drumstick from the tub, and you’re in business. So one might assume that KFC would take the hand-held factor into consideration with any new chicken-in-a-tub product. But it appears the chain didn’t. Kentucky Grilled Chicken leaves behind a viscosity that is most definitely not finger-lickin’ good. Unthink KFC indeed.
By: Arby’s
I Paid: $3.59 (prices may vary by region)
Arby’s sandwiches have had the reputation of being scarily at the low end of the fast-food spectrum, with grayish meat and ointment-esque sauce that not even professional food photographers could make look good. The chain’s new Roastburger is, in fact, its normal roast beef sandwich. Only it’s been gussied up with a few gourmet accouterments, like a ciabatta-esque bun, real produce (lettuce, tomato, onion), and on the Bacon & Bleu version pepper-spiked bacon and blue cheese, spelled—you guessed it—bleu cheese. It’s being marketed as a healthier, innovative alternative to a burger. Healthier because it’s “never fried, never greasy.”
For those who have never eaten at Arby’s, or who have no preexisting opinions about the chain’s food, the Roastburger may indeed present an enticing burger alternative. I, for one, am just such a consumer. I hadn’t eaten at Arby’s before researching this column, and I was pleasantly surprised by the new offering. Indeed, the Roastburger beats the pants off most fast-food burgers. There’s a bouncy lightness to the piles of sliced beef that manages to make this fast-food entrée feel a little less like a greased hockey puck sliding to the bottom of one’s gullet. Granted, this isn’t a work of culinary genius—roast beef, onion, and cheese are not a surprising nor subtle symphony of flavors—but the Roastburger is still a fine fast-food choice.
Overall I like the Roastburger okay, but it seems to be seasoned with some kind of weird, chemical-tasting "grill" or "smoke" flavor. I wish they'd skip that.
Arby's sandwiches are indeed master works of corporate recycling - the 'roast beef' has been chopped, pressed and resliced into a surprisingly decent, lower fat, beef-like product. The 'ciabatta' type bun doesn't sound good - I like the lighter seeded hamburger bun.
OTOH KFC seems to have 'lost the formula' in many senses of the expression. The classic fried chicken does seem underseasoned and is usually not properly cooked. Prices are noticeably higher than their competition. The one near me just closed despite being in a high traffic, fast food prime location for decades.
In Ottawa, a former KFC was reincarnated as a Portuguese grill place centred on delicious grilled chicken - and it is not very much more expensive than the fastfood joint was; it is a neighbouhood restaurant run by a family, on Dalhousie St near the public market. http://casadochurrasco.tripod.com/
Here in Montréal, there are many Portuguese grilled chicken places (eat-in and takeaway) that are anything but slimy or bland.
I have never eaten at an Arby's (honestly don't know if there are any up here) but I don't "get" roast beef and orange cheese. Guess it is because it is not real roast beef, which would need nothing else at all to be tasty.
People from Western New York might weigh in about their delicious "beef on weck" sandwiches.
They may be made with slices of processed beef loaf, but Arby's plain beef sandwich drenched in Horsey sauce is actually pretty tasty. The roastburger is not. The I had was infused with some kind of "grill flavor", and the actual sauce was sickly sweet.
Funniest thing about the Arby's commercial is that if you freeze-frame just as they close up (fleetlingly) on the meat, you can see a squarish block of something sitting in a mosaic of other criss-crossed pieces of something. Looks like beef head-cheese. Your local grocery store's roast beef is nothing to write home about, but at least it has a grain pattern and is clearly a single piece of meat.
KFC used to be the thing for me as a kid. The thing to beg for, in that fabulous bucket with the amazing sides and biscuits galore. I was rerely given any, and it was a rare treat to get.
Well, I have no clue why. My first turn off was the hippification with Kentucky Fried Chicken turning into "KFC". The stupid cartoon Colonel was next, cabbage patching his way to idioticy. Then, moving to the west coast, I noticed that KFC seemed to be marketed towards a distinct segment of the population. Why? Can't we all get along and like fried chicken?
Then it seemed that the "eleven herbs and spices", which never really existed, seemed to turn into "Eleven varieties of salt, with maybe some pepper. Extra Crispy nearly took off a tooth, and regular got soggy in a hurrry if the lid was left on the bucket. The biscuits make better hocky pucks, and the potatoes are glue like.
The killer were the stupid vomit bowls, which I cant fathom. Poutine-loving canadians gag at KFC bowls.
Now they faux grill meat. Lovely. Pretty soon, they'll just use faux meat. Or fry salt.
If I MUST do chain chicken, I'm going to Popeye's. I wish Pioneer was around. But in LA, we have enough good chicken places that should I ever want some (Which is rare these days) I can get some succulent crispy chicken with lovely flavor and faboo biscuits. And maybe a waffle to boot.
KFC, DON'T DO WAFFLES!
I haven't tasted the KFC "grilled" checken yet, but the ads show the "healthy" chicken being served with biscuits, mashed potatoes and gravy! HELLOO? Where is the healthy in that? Once I saw those ads, I knew I would not be stopping by for a piece of the "new" KFC product.
My friends and I all call KFC "dirty bird"... enough said.
You went to KFC what do you expect, a charcoal grill out back with someone sitting next to it in a lawn chair? They present a new perspective on their food, they are trying to change the whole market.
KFC - doing it wrong - all day every day.
With their track record of over the top cruel treatment of these poor chickens I wish nothing more than for KFC to go belly up. SOON!
I'm glad that as an Arby's virgin you walked away with a decent reaction to the kinda-roast-beef. Yeah, it's processed all to hell, and it's not very pretty, but neither is any other fast food sandwich. Arby's is a nice little change of pace, and has significantly less fat than a burger (as long as you avoid the cheese goo). When I worked in midtown, we used to take epic journeys to the Manhattan Mall food court to get Arby's to make the rest of the office covetous. Alas, the Arby's there is no more, but my eyes light up when I see that big cowboy hat sign on a suburban strip mall highway.
I tried it and it has no legs! Where is the famous flavor? Now I know why people are buying chicken at grocerants.
Shocking about KFC's slimy new grilled chicken! I expected it to be completely dried out, through and through. :-)
'ointment-esque sauce that not even professional food photographers could make look good'?!
I've taken photos of my Arby meals for my blog with a cheap camera and they looked pretty mouthwatering to me. I grew up eating Arby's so maybe it's a sentimental attachment but I still love their Arby's sauce and horsey sauce. The beef n cheddar burger is also pretty good, especially with their potato cakes or curly fries.
I like Arby's once in a while, but the Roast Burger will not substitute when a burger craving takes control. I second the comment about the seasoning, it's on everything...no thanks.
KFC has been out of our diet since the local store sent us home with raw chicken. We can do it better with a nice marinade, slow cooked on the grill.
Yuck. Why are we even discussing these things on Chowhound? Makes my skin crawl to think about eating either "product". Long live the independents!
I'm sure that Kentucky Grilled Chicken will last as long as the Tender Roast and the Colonel's Rotisserie Gold (briefly introduced to compete with Boston Market). People don't go to KFC for grilled or roasted chicken. They go for FRIED, or a reasonable facsimilie.
I remember when Pollo Loco first opened in the U.S. (6th and Alvarado in Los Angeles) and their WHOLE menu was:
A. Whole Chicken or
B. Half-Chicken
with
C. Corn tortillas or
D. Flour tortillas
plus sodas
You could see the chix on the grill, and you could see the grill guy cleaver yours into pieces right before it went into the box.
It was truly a revelation after KFC.
I shamefully admit that I LOVE the KFC grilled thighs and biscuits. Only the thighs though. The biscuits are heaven to me.
I don't like anything else there. I got the string beans and they were awful. So was the mac and cheese.
I guess that makes me a chowhound heretic! ;)