Sunday 8 January 2012

KFC Hot Wings & Fresh Range Subs

 With the Signature burgers dropped from the KFC menu a day after I reviewed them, it has taken me a week to have a chance to try out their new three items - Spicy wings, Honey Mustard Sub, & Chipotle Grilled Sub.

So I went to my nearest KFC at Sunnybank, and ordered each (plus a Dinner Box). It took a while for the girl on the counter to get someone in the back to make up the two Subs... and as I was handed the bag and turned away to leave, I looked through and found that the wings were missing.
It reminded me of the Movie Lethal Weapon 2, with the Leo Getz talking about the Drive-thru. Except I didn't go through their Drive-thru. I went inside, and they only had to put 6 items into the bag.
It wasn't a good start... I mean, how are you supposed to review something if they don't remember to give it to you.

I ate the chips on the way home (from the Dinner Box), and they were stale... Hot, but the texture of them was of old chips kept warm. Lucky for them the chips weren't being reviewed, as it would have been one more negative thing on this occasion.
Actually, a third disappointing thing was the lack of Grilled chicken on the Chipotle Sub. They had the regular strips on both Subs (only the Honey Mustard Sub is meant to have them).

So while on the topic of the Subs...

Honey Mustard Sub. $7
2 original Chicken strips on a sub with lettuce, tomato, cheese, bacon, onion and honey-mustard sauce.
Not much sauce though, making it very dry and tasteless.  If KFC are trying to out-sub Subway, they should look at why their subs are more flavourful... by having enough sauce to at least give it the taste of its name.  This one just tasted like a chicken salad roll, with nothing saucy for flavour or moisture.
The better of the two, but not by much. 2/5

Chipotle "grilled" Sub. $7
2 Chicken strips (supposed to be grilled chicken), lettuce, tomato, cheese, and chipotle relish.
This one was similarly absent of decent flavour (they should get some pointers from Hungry Jacks on how to sauce up things, as their burgers are known for dripping from so much sauce). The chipotle relish was nice when I was able to dig out some and try it on its own, but you just can't taste it in the whole Sub.
I was very disappointed by not having grilled chicken on the Sub, or being told about it (if they didn't have any)... so the rating is obviously affected by the missing main ingrediant. 1/5

(note - it's sorta pronounced "chi-pot-lay" but the people at the KFC were saying "chi-po-tal")

Spicy wings 3 for $3.25
not very spicy, and not very much for $1 each.  I'd hardly call them "wings" either, as each one is only one-third of a wing. The three sections of a chicken wing is the tip, the middle section which has two bones, and the "drumstick" section that attaches to the main part of the bird.  Normally, you get all three sections of the wing, as the "wing" when buying regular pieces, but for about the same price you only get a third of it, coated in sauce instead of the usual crumbed or spicy coating. 1/5

The Wings & Subs as they are packaged.

Unrwapped... (Honey Mustard Sub is in the middle)


Cut open (and with a bite taken out of one of the wings).


The Subs look nice intact and cut open, but when you actually open up the Subs, do they show off how empty of ingredients they really are. I didn't do anything to these other than open them up and place the chicken strip onto the top bun half and moved the cheese slice over to the right of the Chipotle Sub. This is how plain these are. It almost looks like the Honey Mustard Sub doesn't even have any sauce. Both are lacking in ingredients at the ends of the Sub (the cheese slice is covering up nothing but plain bread).

The one on the left is the Honey Mustard Sub, and the Chipotle is on the right.


I did end up finding that these were a lot nicer after a minute in the Microwave, especially the Chipotle Sub. So the Honey Mustard one is slightly better when they are cold, but the Chipotle one is better when hot.
Not sure what it would be like if it had the Grilled Chicken strips that it was supposed to have though.

I don't think that these will last long, and I look forward to their next "special" items, as these were very uninspiring, and disappointly prepared. I won't be buying any of them again. (and don't recommend them either - if you want a good chicken Sub, go to Subway, as they have the experience to do it right)
Perhaps if they were served warm, and with at least 2-3 times as much sauce on them, these would interest the usual KFC demographic. Lately though, the Signature range and now this "fresh" & "healthier" Sub range, are both pitched at people who wouldn't go anywhere near a KFC... and the ones that do, are there for a "quick" hit of unhealthy fat-filled, fried chicken. These Burgers & Subs take too long to prepare, and aren't the normal KFC standard that most blue-collar customers are expecting or preferring (otherwise they would go somewhere with a reputation for a healthier or fancier menu).
This is why I'm a regular customer of KFC... if they tried to change their style or format away from why I go there often, I'd go somewhere else that does provide cheap, quick, unhealthy "junk food".
It's one reason why I prefer Hungry Jacks over McDonalds - one is embracing their "home of the Burger" image (or at least they were), while the other one lost that some time ago when they converted themselves into a Cafe & health-food franchise that just happens to still sell burgers somewhere in its menu. (it's been 11 1/2 years since I last bought McDonalds)

So, throw in the stale chips and missing wings, this was one of my worst KFC experiences.  I don't expect much from KFC, because it's a convenient fried, saturated fat-filled food source... so it takes a fair bit to have a bad experience.

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