KFC's Double Down Sandwich

For those of you living in America, I'm sure you would have heard of KFC's Double Down Sandwich. Their ads are on TV all the time, you can see the posters plastered almost everywhere and everybody is talking about it. For those of you who don't know, it's the all new 'bunless' sandwich. The concept that KFC is trying to push is...a regular sandwich with just one regular chicken patty isn't enough. Most people need to eat at least TWO to be full. So hey, let's just eliminate the bun all together and use two huge chicken fillets as the bun! OMG! Like seriously, isn't fast food in America unhealthy enough? Do we really need to go this far? With all the hype revolving around this new product, I just had to try it. So, off to our local KFC I went.

I never liked KFC in America (I gotta admit I love the Malaysian KFC though) to begin with. I personally feel that the chicken in KFC is way too greasy, smaller and more expensive compared to the other chicken joints. However, for the sake of trying out a new product, I decided to put that all aside and went in with an open mind.

Alright, this is it. Inside this box lays one of the most talked about sandwich in recent times. Let me warn you that it doesn't come cheap. A meal consisting of one sandwich, wedges and a drink cost $7.99 and just the sandwich will set you back $5.99. Just for comparison, depending on what state you are from, a Big Mac would cost about $3.75 and a Double Whopper around $3.99. So yeah, $5.99 for a sandwich is pretty steep.

Here it is! The Double Down Sandwich. It wasn't as huge as what we saw in the ads but one things for sure, it was really greasy! The bottom of the wrapper was soaked with oil. When I ordered the sandwich, the guy at the counter did a double take and gave me the 'are you serious?' look. He actually had to go make the sandwich while I wait. I was pretty surprised that there wasn't any just sitting there, since it was a new product. Now I am beginning to see why. I guess it's not one of the 'hot sellers'.

So, what's in the sandwich anyways? Here's the breakdown. Two (really greasy) chicken fillets with two slices of bacon, two melted slices of Montery & Pepper Jack cheese and some Colonel's sauce. Boy, I can feel my arteries starting to clog, just by typing all this. Oh, you can choose to get the grilled version instead of the Original recipe but why bother. If you want to kill yourself, might as well go all the way, right? :P

Now the important part. The taste test. I thought to myself, hey, I wouldn't mind shortening my life by a couple of days and eat this if it's yummy. I also thought that I was being really clever by cutting a biscuit into half and using it as a 'bun'. So, I now have a super tall, extra greasy, sodium filled sandwich. After a few bites, I realized that no way I can go through this in one sitting. It was just too greasy. I can actually feel the oil squirting out as I bite into the sandwich. However, the Chinese in me said that I should not waste food (especially after paying so much for a silly sandwich), so I pressed on. Half way thru the sandwich, I was already beginning to feel sick. By then, Kevin was mocking me and started to say that I should just stop. Why torture myself? He said that it's just gross and that he knew that I couldn't finish the sandwich even before I bought it. OK, now I'm on a mission. I HAD to finish it, just to prove a point. So I pressed on. Not only was it oily, it was really filling. The chicken fillets really fill you up. By the time I took the last bite (it took me almost 45 minutes to finish it, I was like watching TV and slowly nibbling on it), I was sick. Really sick. I felt like throwing up, because of all that oil. I can feel the oil just sitting in my mouth. I had to detox myself by drinking loads of hot green tea and oranges. Also, (trying not to be gross here..) I had the runs all night long. Horrible horrible. Well, on the upside, at least I can say I have tried it when people talk about this 'new' sandwich. All I can say is...never again.

KFC @ Incheon International Airport

Remember me blogging about our 12 hour layover in Korea and how we had to wait for almost 2 and a half hours before the transit tour desk was open for the day? Well, to kill time, we went to KFC for breakfast. It was actually a toss up between KFC and McDonalds but KFC won because McDs was serving their regular breakfast menu and we wanted to try something different (something that is not on the US or Malaysian KFC/McDs menu).

Ordering our food wasn't an easy task. About 95% of the menu was in Korean, with tiny English words here and there. It took us quite a while to figure out what we wanted and proceeded to order by pointing at the pictures on the menu (you would think that the menu would be in English and that the workers would have a better understanding of English, since this outlet was in an international airport after all).

Kevin ordered the Tower Burger & Chicken set. The set consist of one Tower Burger, one piece of chicken and a drink. The Tower Burger was pretty big and looked really yummy. Spicy white meat chicken fillet (something like the Zinger fillet), hash browns, lettuce, some sort of sauce and melted cheese in a sesame seed bun. I didn't try it but Kevin says it's really good.

For his chicken, he had a choice between original, spicy or garlic (some new promotion that they were having at that moment). Of course we tried the garlic. I took a bite of his chicken and mmmm mmm mmmm. Realllly good! They should consider putting that on their regular menu! Crispy on the outside and juicy in the inside. Really well marinated too...awesome! The fries in the photo is part of my set. Nothing to shout about I guess, just regular fries :D

I ordered the Shrimp Burger set. It came with one shrimp burger, a single serving of fries and a drink. The Shrimp Burger was really good. One crunchy shrimp patty (with pretty big chunks of shrimp), lettuce and some sort of tangy sauce in a lightly toasted sesame seed bun. Very yummy indeed!

We also ordered an eggtart each for our dessert. The pastry was nice and flaky and the filling wasn't too sweet (which is a good thing). However, it was way too oily/greasy. Overall, it wasn't too bad.

So, what's the damage? The bill came up to KRW 14,100. I can't remember what is the exact breakdown of each item but KRW 14,100 is approximately US$12.50. I am not sure if the pricing is the same for all KFC outlets or this particular one is more expensive because it's located in the airport. I guess $12.50 is not too bad, it's about the same (maybe even a little less) as what we pay for a two person meal back in the States. Stay tuned for more about our transit tour in my next post!