This probably isn't news to a whole suite of people, but apparently the wiz-kids over at McDonald's have set their sights pretty high. I saw a commercial this week that alerted me to this fact, though it's entirely possible that the germ of this has been on their menu for, uh... years. You see, the fine purveyors of flavorless styrofoam over at McDihakd's have a sandwich they call "crispy chicken" but which was pretty apparent from the ad I saw a bald-faced shot at Chick-fil-a.
As I said, it's possible this sandwich has been on their menu for ages and I just didn't know about it. But to me it's equally possible that the sandwich called "crispy chicken" was until very recently an extra large McNugget on a bun with lettuce and tomato, and this recent advertising push accompanies a reinvention of the menu item. Because I feel like "a chicken sandwich that actually looks pretty good" is the kind of thing I would have seen on a poster somewhere during all the time I've sat in their drive-thru waiting on a drink.
Whatever convoluted Shakespearean history this menu item has been through on the way to letting its psychopathic wife take a knife to the moonlit chambers of the King of Chicken Sandwiches, it was clear to me almost immediately that I needed to investigate said chambers to see whether an actual regicide had occurred. So I picked up a sandwich called "crispy chicken" from the tiny windows of McDino's and the quote-unquote original chicken sandwich from the spacious glass door Chick-fil-a puts in their drive-thru's these days for a head-to-head comparison.
First, the incumbent. The basic chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-a is always a fast food treat, with unarguably the best drive-thru service and unarguably the most pleasant staff thanks to their seemingly rather considerate working conditions and evidently industry leading associate pay. The bread is fluffy but robust enough to accompany a hearty fried chicken breast, and the chicken itself is tender and juicy inside an extremely well-fried crust of nicely seasoned breading. Tangy pickles provide a lovely acidity to the whole affair, and quite aside from any sauce these things just taste good. There's nothing magical or special about it, and you can easily replicate this sandwich at home provided you've got a little familiarity with frying chicken. But the sandwich is simply executed well, is delicious from all angles, and from order to the first bite it comes to you faster than you could ever hope to prepare it at home. It's just a darn good sandwich, and while just under $5 may be a bit more than you'd want to pay every day, it's honestly perfectly reasonable given the quality of service that accompanies the food.
Now, the chicken sandwich McDuuuudels gave me. It's a fried chicken breast on a bun with two pickles. It's even delivered in a foil-lined paper bag, packaging that is utterly unique from everything else on their menu and even everything else in the fast food sphere aside from - you guessed it - Chick-fil-a. From the instant this thing landed in my lap I was flabbergasted, and then I took a bite and lemme-tail-yuuuuu this thing could not be a more blatant rip-off of the Chick-fil-a chicken sandwich if it said Chic-fill-ay on the bag. The flavor profile is virtually identical, the ingredients the same, and the packaging looks like they hijacked a truck on the way to a Chick-fil-a distribution warehouse and took a laser printer to the blank bags inside.
So that's the sheer audacity of the thing aside. Now how does it taste? In what is perhaps a surprise to nobody, it's the best thing I have ever eaten from McDonald's.
I guess what they say it true, that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. With this sandwich the anti-flavor engineers at the House of M seem to be admitting that nothing they could ever come up with would compare to Chick-fil-a's most basic fare, and so they've had to settle for just copying it wholesale. There's just one liiiiiiiiitle tiny issue with that; they didn't lovingly recreate the sandwich so much as they Xeroxed it. And much as with an actual Xerox this thing is basically the same, but really just a tiny bit less in every possible metric.
The bun isn't as sturdy and doesn't taste like much at all. The pickles are the same pickles used elsewhere on MyDear's menu, which is to say they're crunchy but otherwise lack any distinguishing features beyond a faint whisper of the word "vinegar" carried on the wind. The chicken itself seems to be good white meat, but it's ever-so-slightly drier than I wanted it to be, as if slightly over-cooked, or perhaps improperly thawed. Likewise the breading has far more flavor than anything else I've had at McGonagle's in recent memory that wasn't made by Dr Pepper, but despite having the same flavor profile as the reigning king of chicken sandwiches it simply doesn't have the same strength of flavor, almost as if you were tasting the memory of a chicken sandwich rather than the chicken sandwich itself. And even the quality of the fry was just a tiny bit worse, seeming slightly over-fried in a way that left an extra-crisped mouth feel somewhat akin to oil-soaked high-grit sandpaper.
It's genuinely not a bad sandwich, it's just not as good as the actual king. Of course, there is the price to account for, and given that the GolDenarches offer the sandwich for less, it might be worth consideration in the event that...
Oh, wait. It's only like 20 cents less. Uh... nevermind. For that price difference I feel like it's well worth it to go to the faster and far more pleasant restaurant that evidently actually pays their employees. So I suppose that concludes our investigation. If you don't live anywhere near a Chick-fil-a and you're just really jonesing for one of their sandwiches but you're not exactly in the mood to fry up your own chicken (understandable), you could honestly do a lot worse than the sandwich called "crispy chicken" from McDuncan's. But if you have both options available to you, just go to Chick-fil-a.
Turns out the king is alive and well. Has anyone seen Lady Macbeth? Given the amount of blood on the floor over here I think she may have accidentally stabbed herself.
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| But at least she's having fun. |
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