KFC Double Down launch day! - Page 2

Oh that's a deal-breaker for you? Huh. To each his own I guess.

Yeah, man. I don't know how you guys kick it in the land down under. In the real America, we don't fuck corpses.

What about the unreal America?

I don't what the coastal territories do with their corpses. Whatever it is, surely it makes the baby Jesus cry.


Back on topic, will you try the Double Down when it makes its way to Australia?

I have to be pretty fucking drunk these days to find myself in a Dirty Bird as my missus and I refer to it as.

But then we never even got the sadness bowl, so I don't see the pile of cheesy meats making it as far as the antipodes.

Don't worry, you'll get your chance to choke on America's cheesy goodness.

We're like a drunken fat boy. Whether you want it or not, we're going to jam it in your mouth while you're sleeping.

I had this SOB earlier today. I found it to be both better than I expected and way worse than I expected.

THE GOOD:

• It's not as deadly as you think. It's as "bad" as a Big Mac in the calorie/fat dept. Which is pretty standard fast food.
• It's two fried chicken breasts, two pieces of bacon, some cheese and sauce. It's carnival style food only in concept.
• It tastes pretty damned good. I came for the curiosity and stayed for the delicious.

THE BAD:

• It's too greasy. Taste is fine but the grease is a turn off.
• It's way heavier than you imagine. It's just a frightening mass of food.
• It's embarrassing. Seriously... I pride myself on not being a stereotypical American pig. Being seen eating this felt like I put a magnetic 9-11 ribbon on my car.

So the verdict? It's good but please for the love of everything holy, do not eat this thing on the regular.

God damn you Americans. I get teased by the ridiculous fast food you guys get, in Canada we get a steak burger. Wow.

Still waiting on my grilled kfc up here. The idea of a sandwich with meat instead of bread... fuckers

I don't like when people fetishize food. It's shit you put in you to survive, and anything beyond that is purely optional. If you don't like a certain kind of food, don't have it, but why begrudge someone else who doesn't give a shit?

And don't tell me it's about health. You don't give a shit about random stranger's health. No one runs into the cigar thread telling everyone how crazy they are and how bad smoking is for your health, but when it comes to fast food, HOLY SHIT HOW COULD THEY THIS IS CRAZY.

Not a fan of Super Size Me, Patrick?There were some compelling arguments in there about why Americans, even ones we don't know, should be eating better and not being a drain on the fucked healthcare system. You are a GLOBAL CITIZEN PATRICK

Well I'm personally in fine shape, so I'm speaking more of the general snobbish foodie tone I tend to detect in threads like these. But I don't remember those arguments in Super Size Me (likely overshadowed by wacky Spurlock getting fat montages), so I'll give folks the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're being concerned and socially responsible citizens as opposed to self-righteous blowhards.

Nah, Im just a self-righteous foodie snob.

Really? The one thing I took away was his interview with Jabba the Diabetic, talking about how many gallons of soda the guy drank every day and his astonishing hospital bills.

Australia is home to the best fast food in existence: Oporto. It's like In n Out except with fresh grilled chicken.

Of course in nearby New Zealand, every town of >99 people has a KFC... and I am not exaggerating.

KFC is a schizophrenic place. They have some of the healthiest fast food around (grilled chicken + potatoes + corn for $4) and some of the nastiest looking artery cloggers imaginable. I suspect those Bowls and this "sandwich" have their origins in dare-based brainstorming sessions.

I'm not really a food snob as such but I'm an ex chef and it does wig me out a bit that people consider this food. It's two kinds of processed meat from what is likely a less than healthy source. I'm a stoner so it's not like I haven't had my fair share of pretty gruesome stuff back in the day but a part of me does feel a bit sad that this sort of thing could have a market conceivably big enough to make it a standard item on a globally popular restaurant chain.

I'm sure most of you have seen this already, but for those who haven't, Nathan Rabin weighed in (see what I did there?) on the Double Down a few months back over at the AV Club.

The #2 bad that you listed is a "GOOD" for me. I'm going to definitely fuck with this sandwich sometime soon. I have to try it... just for the novelty of it. I once had a Luther burger from Mulligan's in Atlanta (basically a bacon cheeseburger with a krispy kreme doughnut serving as the bun) and once tasted a hamdog (hotdog wrapped in beef, deep fried, topped with chili and a fried egg on a hotdog bun) so this isn't the most messed up thing I've ever eaten. I'll likely douse it in honey sauce as well, for some reason it tastes really good on the skin of KFC's chicken. I'm gonna need some wetnaps.

Oh, I believe there is a grilled chicken version of the double down available. But if you're gonna try this, why not go for broke.

Here is the Wikipedia entry on the Luther Burger


Here is the hamdog:



Cross-section and anatomy:

If Jim Gaffigan doesn't talk about the KFC Double Down on his next comedy album, I'll be sorely disappointed.

That Luther Dog and Hamdog do not look delicious to me. Then again, I've always been a fan of chicken over beef.

I'm not generally a gluttonous person, but a year ago I visited my aunt and uncle in Rochester and I asked my uncle to show me the sights. Apparently there is a dive diner called Nick Tahou's that is famous for its "Garbage Plate".

It's a layer of macaroni salad and your choice of potato (home fries, french fries, etc) topped with your choice of two meats (hamburgers, cheesburgers, hot dogs, chicken) topped with chili and cheese and then their special sauce. Generally, the place is packed at 4 a.m. by drunken frat boys, but since I was with family we went there for lunch. Still, surprisingly full restaurant. I gotta say, it wasn't that bad. Besides being a giant mass of food, the components are basically what you would pile on a plate at a backyard BBQ.

The fine folks over at NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Blog Me! offer up their take on the Double Down.

Jesus Christ! It looks like something out of The Thing.

Luckily some brave patron took it upon himself to stab the beast.

Yeah, the Garbage Plate, broken down to its singular elements, isn't that terrible at all. But piled all at once....

And while Nick Tahou's invented it, pretty much every second rate burger joint in the area has some variation. And many more frightening than the originals. Forget where it is, but I've heard many a legend of a place that does a breakfast version that's several pieces ham, bacon, sausage, 4 pancakes, 3 eggs, 2 donuts, hash browns, covered in maple syrup.

If I ever announce my intent to commit delicious suicide, you know where to start looking.

"This sandwich is an Al Qaeda plot." Bahahahahaha!

As no one has, to date, held a gun to my head and demanded I eat a Double Down, I can't work up too much in the way of umbrage over it. That being posted, this is what popped into my head while reading this thread:

*slowly pulls hammer back on pistol* I know what you're having for lunch Mattioli.

I've been to both places, they are not the same thing. Still, Oporto does have damn good chicken sandwiches.

This is a bizarre argument to make on a message board where people regularly shame others for bad taste in movies, books, music, etc. If you think that food is just "shit you put in you to survive," that's fine, but to anyone who actually spends time thinking about the preparation of food or eating things that actually bother to taste good instead of being just filling, you're going to come off like the guy who watches any bullshit that the major studios squeeze out and heavily promote, because it's just a way to pass the time.

And it's not just about health - I eat meat, I eat stuff that's loaded with butter and stuff that's cooked in fat. But there's a big difference between Julia Child recipes that follow this format (or even any local greasy spoon that exercises just a little bit of creativity and attention to detail) and KFC or Taco Bell, where the greatest innovation possible is to smash the same boring, salty ingredients together over and over. It's pretty simple-minded to reduce this to "it's all food." That's like saying all music is just a bunch of indiscriminate noise or movies are all just pretty moving pictures.

Not to defend KFC or Taco Bell, but as someone who works in the food ingredient industry I can 100% guarantee that their food technologists and R&D specialists come up with new and exciting foods all the time. It's the when the new stuff goes to market testing that the new stuff is shot down. Seriously. Some of the things I have seen and tried for McDonald's and similar companies while in prototype form? Amazing.

Examples?

Classified. They hold onto the prototype information pretty rigorously. It is a very competitive market.

He's seen shit that'll turn you WHITE.

"12:51: Mike: This is a Last Days type of thing, right? Didn't the Romans reveal a Double Down before they fell?"

Awesome...

I guess I can't really respond, since I don't know what constitutes "new and exciting" on the R&D end. I mean, chicken slurry was certainly new (if perhaps not so exciting) at one time, but that doesn't mean it's anything anyone would want to eat (from a taste or nutritional standpoint) if it weren't fried up beyond recognition in McNugget form.

I guess what I was trying to say was don't blame the restaurants. Blame the people who continue to buy the same boring food and never deviate from that path. The amount of money being spent on cheaper, better quality and nutritional food is insane. The fact that most of those developed products being locked away in favor of lame knock-offs based on old standbys is truly depressing.

I assume that the cheaper still gets through to some extent, since the trend seems to be the switcheroo of providing people with more food rather than good food, along with the requisite ad campaigns that align quantity with "manliness" or whatever: "YOU'RE A BIG, GRUNTING, IDIOTIC MAN-BEAST! EAT THE SAME CHEAPLY-PRODUCED SHIT THAT WE PAWN OFF ON LITTLE CHILDREN IN HAPPY MEALS, BUT WAY MORE OF IT."

ETA: That is, I agree that the consumer is to blame to some extent, but the industry is more than just complicit, at least on the marketing end.

I'm partial to this:

But I had to sig the one two punch of these two.

Between the Five-Dollar Footlong and the Monster Thickburger, I'm starting to believe that all fast food is designed to stand in for your horribly inadequate penis.

Fixed.

Why do you think Florida's shaped like a dick?

Honestly, I think you would be surprised at what is created and ultimately chosen based on consumer feedback. Let's just say that there is a cheaper version of french fries that are neither fried nor potatoes. Tasted fantastic (to me). Market testing didn't like it at all. Marketing is tailored almost solely on consumer feedback. Does that make the industry complicit? Perhaps. Then again, you'd have an industry failing because people wouldn't spend money in their stores.

In today's Psychological Science: Fast food makes you impatient.

I don't begrudge people who have bad taste in movies or music or any kind of art, unless they're making claims that they have good taste or trying to defend the quality of the product.

Regardless of your thoughts on what others consume, you personally have standards for these things, yes? It's not "fetishizing" something to actually pay attention to quality instead of just devouring (in the a metaphorical or literal sense) everything that's shoved in your face. It's a curious double-standard to understand how one might be selective when it comes to what you put into your brain but not when it comes to what you put in your stomach.

And, yeah, I'll admit that I do begrudge timid eaters with low standards of quality a little, because it directly* and indirectly** affects my options (granted, to a far more limited degree than in film, because it's far easier to make my own dinner than my own movie). And I'll admit to doing the same when it comes to film and music, because relativism only goes so far.

* Some family members are unbelievably picky eaters, which means that MissZooey and I have to cook around their taste for the bland, and occasionally have to eat some pretty boring food.

** As HBarr pointed out, mass consumer demand dictates options, generally. There are a lot of people who'd be happy about a great, interesting, locally-owned restaurant going out of business to make room for a Cheesecake Factory.

All I have to say about the "launch" of this abomination* is a sad day in American History, and will in future text books most likely be listed somewhere between the Triangle Factory fire and Teapot Dome

*the only 'launch' this product is fit for is one that sends it to bottom of the ocean

Film is an interest of mine, so I care about films. Food is not an interest of mine, the same way that sculpture isn't an interest of mine or opera isn't an interest of mine, so I don't care about it. I'm sure I have shitty taste in paintings and interior decorating and fashion as well, but none of them are interests of mine, so they don't bother me one way or another.

I'm not saying I only eat fast food and that I can't tell the difference between an Arby's Roast Beef sandwich and a homemade rump roast. I'm saying that, being someone who has to eat twice a day, I don't always care.

Fuck a Cheesecake Factory.

Shit's overpriced like hell.

I think DaveB was just taking issue with your declarative "food is just shit you put in your mouth to survive", which seems to deny the art of epicurean pleasure. Which you may not have necessarily meant to imply.

Sorry Dave. I was just complicit with the fast food industry. Had one at lunch. The fried variety. I like it. I'm a bad, bad person.

Bingo. You may not begrudge people for not giving a shit about food, but you certainly seem to begrudge them for giving a shit.

You're right, I didn't mean to imply that, but it does. And I recognize that there is a huge grey area between being an epicurean and simply choosing not to eat fast food, another thing I don't think I've gotten across very well.

EDIT: What I begrudge people for is acting like their approach is the only way. I have plenty of friends who don't eat fast food but don't comment on my choice to eat it. So I'm not saying that if you care about what you eat, you're a snob. I just ALSO see a lot of people acting like anyone who doesn't care is a mouth-breathing sub-human.

No guilt over this. Low culture deserves to be celebrated, particularly when it's fun or excessive, as this most certainly is.