Place: KFC
Item: Oven-Roasted Strips
Price: $4, includes two sides
What does it mean to eat at KFC these days? Is it a greasy guilty pleasure
for suburbia, a healthful doctor-approved lifestyle option or an affirmation
of our “the bucket stops here” redneck pride?
Don’t trust today’s “everything to everybody” KFC
commercials -- only the stomach knows for sure. In that healthy direction,
the Colonel has rolled out of the hen house the new Oven-Roasted Strips, three
pieces of chicken filet baked in the biscuit ovens and gussied up with optional
cheese and your choice of sides. When it comes to chicken strips, is the oven
the answer?
Chris: “Oven-roasted” has a toasty, grandmotherly
ring to it, so I was eager to dig in. KFC is using these new strips on salads
and in a Twister wrap, but I wanted to behold (and hold) the strips themselves
in the three-piece meal. My fingers weren’t too happy about that, getting
gummed up in the pasty orange faux breading. I still expected an oven-roasted
warmth to rush to my heart with the first bite, but instead my taste buds
screamed this message to my brain: “Too much oregano!”
That got me thinking that the Colonel was trying to hide something in his
overseasoned zealousness. I was right. A strip stripped of its coating was
a disappointing chicken Spam
compartment of the three-segment serving plate. They
looked like the protein part of a bad frozen diet dinner, and their taste
followed suit. Does no one at KFC remember the number was 11 herbs and spices?
These were overloaded with 50. In fairness, the strips are all white meat
and they’re on the healthy side, but healthy only works if the item
is worth eating. Anyone can make healthy food that tastes bad. I say stay
with the “Original Recipe” fried chicken. If it’s healthy
you want, show some discipline and keep your intake under a bucket a week.
Chris: Sage advice, indeed. KFC has mastered the fried chicken,
so why can’t it make the best chicken out there no matter if it’s
broiled, boiled or oven-roasted? McDonald’s new McNuggets actually scare
me less than these new strips.
Tom: Scary isn’t the right word – sad is better.
And I agree that the old motto “we do chicken right” must only
apply to the fried product. These roasted strips will come and go like the
Macarena and leave no better taste in your mouth.
Rating: 2 sporks (out of 5)
Food facts: Three strips with green beans and seasoned rice:
420 calories (15 percent from fat), 7g fat, 2.5g saturated fat, 38g protein,
50g carbohydrates, 2410mg sodium.
E-mail The Lunch Guys:
tomandchris@thelunchguys.com
sponge that seems to have been pickling in chicken juice. Why create this
seemingly artificial fleshiness when it seems easy enough to toss a few strips
freshly sliced from one chicken into an oven and bake? And why does having
it dusted with a smattering of flavorless-but-fatty cheese tendrils cost 99
cents extra, the worst use of a dollar in the restaurant industry?
Tom: I’m glad to see you were as baffled as I was,
Chris. Initially, I was excited, too. I thought Colonel Sanders had one last
trick up his stuffy white sleeve that he played with almost Nostradamus-like
timing. Just as everyone wanted a protein-rich healthy meal, the Colonel,
I had hoped, had figured out how to make a healthy non-fried fast food chicken
in an easy-to-eat format. Unfortunately, my hopes came crashing down harder
than a May shower at the Kentucky Derby.
Chris, we’ve reviewed a lot of lunches, but never have I described an
item as “lonely.” That’s the only word that came to mind
as the three small chicken strips lay lifeless in their
