Tag: KFC

Ask any small child and they’ll tell you that KFC has not only always had mac and cheese on the menu, but has always had mac and cheese with bits of chicken cut up and tossed around in the bowl. It’s a hand-mixed taste sensation that’s usually left half-eaten and thrown away by a mom tired of fighting with a child that won’t cooperate with a lunchtime meal.

From these literal mouths of children comes Kentucky Fried Chicken’s latest bowl du jour, the Mac & Cheese Bowl, an easy-enough concoction that brings the famous side to the forefront and makes it a blessed entrée for any adult that needs their food in a somewhat compact form, available in both original and, of course, spicy.

Despite the trouble ordering just the bowl at my area franchise — my server told me it’s only available as a “fill up” and I did not feel like arguing — when it arrived quickly on my tray, I immediately noticed it looked far less plump than the advertisements hung all around the store made it seem. While the pictures depict the bowl as a heightened foodscape of chicken and cheese dreams, in real life, it is just a low-lying valley of flat nuggets and buried cheddar.

Popping the plastic top and letting the scented heat waft upwards though, the smell was a peppy delight of warm Nashville hot sauce and melty cheddar cheese. There was a decent enough ratio of chicken to macaroni, always a plus. The spicy chicken popcorn nuggets seemed to cover the top, my fork gently stirring the mac and cheese from the bottom, like a perverted variation of yogurt.

While the spicy Nashville flavor of the chicken overpowered the well-meaning mac and cheese, it still worked here. The underlying cheesy taste is a heavenly layer of yellow deliciousness that manages to break through the thick wall of clucky goodness. It’s a taste that combines very well and, honestly, probably something that many of us already did before this even came out.

Sadly, as tasty as this is, I don’t think it makes a better combination than the typically perfect chicken and mashed potato Famous Bowl, which seems like more of a natural dish, one that has a sprinkling of cheese on it already, along with a few bits of corn. Still, if you’re ordering a Mac & Cheese Bowl, you know what you’re getting and, in that case, you’re going be mighty happy.

But, you know, if this meal doesn’t make you happy, chances are you’re just a fussy four-year-old with great reading skills.

Purchased Price: $5.00 (Fill Up Meal)
Size: N/A
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Unavailable at post time.

Mamma mia! That’s a spicy… um, Famous Bowl?

While at a broad glance, a big bowl full of KFC’s famous brown gravy doesn’t look like it would or should mix with a moderate size drizzle of its new-ish Nashville Hot sauce all that well, but good God almighty if they don’t make quite the sexy pair of tongue-searing bedfellows.

The Famous Bowl has long been the much maligned trough of just about everything on the menu that, against all odds and most expectations, has managed to stay on KFC’s famed menu for quite a while now despite it being a heaping helping of a dystopic future. And, for $3 bucks, that’s really some budget-friendly mass caloric intake that most of America seems more than comfortable to ease our downfall with.

Like a few of its other, more recent menu additions, KFC is adding a straight bit of heat in the form of said Nashville Hot sauce on the tops of these famous bowls. It creates a unique source of tangy hotness that feels like the exact element these bowls have been missing for so long, freeing it and us from downing basically a big bowl of sodium-heavy mush.

Each plastic bowl, loaded to the hilt with, of course, creamy mashed potatoes, firm sweet corn, and crispy chicken bites, as well as the comforting gravy and three shredded cheeses of varying flavors, are taken to a newer level. Not a proud level, but at the very least, a higher one. Each crunchy chicken bite now has a great kick to it, mingling the gritty pepper with the smooth capsicum, a little bit going a very long way.

It’s a nice little burn that’s totally unexpected and morbidly welcomed, the burn quickly diffusing however with the warm gravy and the warmer mashed potatoes providing a different kind of incandescence.

The heat stays for just a couple of self-torturing beats, the uncomfortability leaving when you’re ready. It’s a nice change of sweltering pace from the usual item of fast food burritos and so on. Not that there’s anything wrong with burritos, of course.

The addition of Nashville hot sauce is such a deserving landmark, one that I honestly would like to see them try in the near future with its Georgia Gold additive as well. Really, KFC, anything you can do to make the body-polluting bowl into a more pleasant diversion of taste, here’s my three dollars, have a prototype on my desk by Monday.

And yes, the irony isn’t lost on me over the fact that the Nashville Hot sauce isn’t as great on the individual chicken bearing its name. However, though it took a few trying months, I think we have a purely Southern victory of taste and flavor that would even make the Colonel stand up in his coffin and give a postmortem salute. Cómpralo ya!

Purchased Price: $3.00
Size: N/A
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 720 calories, 34 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 2370 milligrams of sodium, 79 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, and 23 grams of protein.

As I wiped the sticky syrup from my fingers using the convenient wet towelette included with my meal, I have to admit I cracked a deeply disturbing yet wholly satisfied smile. Chicken and waffles seem like such a decades-old bandwagon to jump on. The fact that KFC was actually able to create a seasonal masterwork like this has to be a minor holiday miracle, right?

Having sampled this famed coupling all the way from small local diners to the grandfather of them all, Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in L.A., no two recipes are ever the same, with KFC falling completely in line.

Combining two of the Original Recipe varieties of chicken — a drumstick and thigh, if you will — with a very thick and very heavy mini-waffle, KFC has shined its populous light on a rare dining treat that many people are curious about but might not ever a chance to otherwise enjoy.

Of course, we know that KFC’s chicken is usually tops in this mother-clucking business, so we’ll skip all that for now. The real surprise, the real focus here, has got to be the beautifully vanilla-sweet waffle, a delectable pill that tastes more like a pressed piece of sheet-cake than the archetypical breakfast side. All that’s missing is a heavy dollop of whipped cream.

After tearing open my single-serve cup of Mrs. Butterworth’s, I coated back and forth the good-looking eats laid out before me. The runny guzzle of the much-loved pancake topping puddled at the bottom of the black container, letting the chicken and waffles soak in its sugars for a few mouth-teasing minutes.

The thick syrup made the dense waffle into something like a dunked doughnut, soft but sticky and ready to get your fingers dirty. And while that is expected when it comes to waffles, I wasn’t prepared for how the same chemical reaction — both mentally and physically — would work with the Original Recipe chicken. Who could or would have ever guessed just how much the toothsome syrup made a perfect marriage partner with the highly trademarked chicken.

While I ordered the two pieces with one waffle, there was a part of me that wished I had also ordered the delectable looking Hot Honey Chicken Tender Sandwich that uses the brave little waffles as a top and bottom. To Hell with you, Double Down! Leaving the KFC, maybe next time I thought, maybe next time. Cómpralo ya!

Purchased Price: $5.49
Size: 2 pieces with 1 waffle
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Unavailable at time of publication.