I’ve been intrigued by this mock sandwich since we first learned of its existence. It seemed like the latest enemy on the culinary battlefield that I would have to ride out and do battle with: like the Red Bull Freeze or the Krispy Kreme milkshake. And since this has been touted as the veritable Anti-Christ of the palate, I was prepared for a…I don’t know. The fast food equivalent of facing down Randy Flagg in Vegas, I suppose.
When you first meet the KFC Double Down, it becomes clear that it’s simply a delivery mechanism for meat, specifically chicken. This is because as promised, two KFC chicken breasts (grilled or original recipe style…guess which I chose) form the “bun” to deliver some other stuff to your mouth: bacon, pepper jack cheese, monterey jack cheese, and some special sauce or a sort.
[ad#longpost]If you enjoy original recipe KFC chicken–and I think it tastes fine for fast food chicken myself–then you’re not going to be displeased. But if you wanted much else, then this will be a bit of a disappointment. The bacon taste doesn’t come across, the cheeses are barely acknowledged and the sauce is almost a non-starter. It’s not that they taste bad–it’s just they’re drowned out by the taste of the original recipe chicken. It’s like they wanted to give you an excuse to stack two chicken breasts together and eat them at the same time–like any of us really need an excuse for that.
Is it bad? No, as long as you know what you’re signing up for. Was it as impressive a culinary heresy as I had been led to believe? Not really. Am I dying to get another crack at one of these? Not really. I wouldn’t turn one down, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to have another. It’s not bad, it just isn’t that impressive. Put some more meat in-between the two chicken breasts and get back to me.
I’m still going to eat it.
I see no reason to attempt to persuade you otherwise. :)
I tried the Double Down two days ago. Got the grilled chicken version (that’s the chicken that is very moist and, oddly, oily drippy) I thought the sandwich was all right overall. It’s not worth the price of admission again, however. I got it simply out of curiosity and knowing that this mass-marketed, freakish sandwich could disappear from the KFC menu for good in a few months. Took care of curiosity but sadly took away nearly $9.00 of my already thin wallet for this freakshow rapid-repast.
To Widge, Enjoy your Weekend Justice podcasts too. It’s an awesome 3-hours of audio for my daily life multitasking chores. I listen to you and The Plumester a lot.
Episcopo: Thanks for posting your own experience. Glad you dig the podcastage as well. :)