Arby's Popcorn Chicken Shaker

Completely unsatisfied with my last experience, I pursued another form of Food Served Under a Plastic Dome at a nearby Arby's.

Now there's no point even writing here about Arby's legendary Roast Beast. Called such because everyone and their mother knows you can't call what's in Arby's sandwiches "beef." Last I checked, there's no way you can pull reams and reams of flat, paper-thin, greenish meat off of a cow and lay it in folds upon a sandwich. 

I think Arby's knows full well that their meat is disgusting. Hence why they offer an alternative range of sandwiches and items that they call their "Chicken Naturals."  The latest addition to this family of supposedly natural food is the Popcorn Chicken Shaker.  Let's look at these "natural" ingredients, shall we?

Seasoned with salt, hydrolyzed corn and soy proteins, flavor, contains less than 2% (autolyzed yeast extract, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, enzyme modified egg yolk, thiamine hydrochloride)Battered with: Water, wheat flour, salt, yeast extract, leavening (sodium bicarbonate, sodium aluminum sulfate), disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate, dextrose, yellow corn flour, extractives of paprika and turmeric. Breaded with: bleached wheat flour, salt, spice, disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate, yellow corn flour, extractives of paprika and turmeric. Pre-dusted with wheat flour, salt, yeast extract, garlic powder, spice, onion powder. Breading set in non-hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Mmmm... A relatively lightweight 584 calories of mildly unpronounceable goodness!  Of course, this doesn't cover the packet of "Buffalo" sauce - whose ingredients are undisclosed - but it only adds 1g of fat. To the 27 motherfrikkin' grams already there.

So here we've got a compact fat bomb that, quite frankly, isn't enough to fill you up. You're gonna have to accessorize with some curly fries, maybe some potato wedges... The bottom line is, if you eat like this regularly you'll be dead (or more accurately, seeking treatment for your Type-II diabetes) by the end of the month.

But... but... BUT!  Before you can eat your 280g dosage of bad health in a cup, you have to pour the sauce in, and then SHAKE IT! That's right - you get to evenly distribute the sauce all over the little fried nuggets of chicken yourself. Not only does this ensure that you're not eating soggy Buffalo-style chunks of chicken, but that you are... BURNING CALORIES!

Granted, you'd have to grab the cup with your fist and shake it vigorously up and down for at least fifteen minutes to an hour to get any sort of results, but that's not a concept I'm unfamiliar with.

The end result of all this grabbing-hold-of-the-chicken and shaking it? 

A surprisingly delicious, salty, tangy, crispy, moist, enjoyable meal on the go.

That's right, folks. I like the Popcorn Chicken Shaker. I like how it tastes. I like how it's interactive. (Remember that buzzword from 1996?) I like how its preparation staves off my impending death, if only for a few days at a time.

This dish, my friends, could be the savior of the fast food industry. If every greasy joint out there forced you to exercise in order to prepare your meal, you might just hear about how the Drive-Thru is the new health craze sweeping the nation.

Then again, that's probably all the disodium guanylate and sodium aluminum sulfate talking.

Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart?

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few months, you know that the Simpsons Movie is upon us. Besides 4,000 irritating animated graphics on every Fox-owned network each hour, the marketing minds behind the movie have teamed up with 7-11 stores for a bit of co-op advertising.

This is clearly in The Simpsons' favor. 

In the series (and hardly noticed in the movie), Apu Nahasapeemapetilon's  Kwik-E-Mart is a festering cesspool of overpriced, expired product. Hardly anything 7-11 would want to be associated with. (But how far is that from the truth? Hmm...)  The Simpsons, on the other hand, are getting a boost by having Simpsons-themed product placed through thousands upon thousands of 7-11 stores. Hell, some have been revamped to look like Kwik-E-Marts, for cryin' out loud.

Then again, 7-11 owners are making out like bandits, selling "Squishees" and other Simpsons-branded products like they're going out of style. (OK, they've been out of style ever since Family Guy, but don't tell Matt Groening.)  

Simpsons-mania is spreading at epidemic rates unseen since the early 1990's.  Because people are suckers for marketing. Just like me.

Case in point:  It was a hot day and I thought a Slurpee sounded refreshing. I went into my local 7-11 and was suddenly dazzled by the prospect of getting a "Vanilla Woo Hoo!" Squishee. And as I walked to the back of the store to get said Squishee, I saw the infamous glass case full of Big Bite hot dogs of indeterminable age.  Adorning said case was a static sticker of Homer Simpson making his drooling face (Mmmm... eight month-old snaaaaackssss....) and Apu himself proclaiming, "Our hot dogs are full of bunly goodness!"

Well, I couldn't resist. I got my Squishee and accessorized it with a 1/4-pound Big Bite hot dog, knowing full well that A) I don't really like hot dogs and B) I really don't like 7-11 hot dogs. God damn marketing.

To be honest, the Squishee's better than I expected. Then again, what exactly can you expect of crushed ice blended with an artificial vanilla-flavored, artificial blue-colored syrup, served in an industrial yellow-tinted plastic cup?  Surprisingly, this fistful of petrochemicals is decent. And refreshing, despite the plasticky taste of the cup and the straw. It's kind of like making a water balloon out of vanilla creme soda, sticking it in the freezer to get it all slushy, then sucking the contents out. You know - yummy in a gross kind of way.

Notice that the blue-on-yellow coloring makes it look like you're sucking on Marge Simpson. Rrrrowrrrrr.

The 1/4-pound Big Bite hot dog is another story altogether. While it's not (I hope) the ancient, dried out, jerky-like substance that Apu serves up in his fictitious convenience store, I hardly imagine his wares could be much worse than this.  This has got to be the single nastiest, saltiest hunk of fast food pseudo-meat I've ever had the displeasure of tasting. And believe me, there's been a lot of meat crammed in my mouth. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's named in the singular - Big Bite - instead of the plural - Big Bites - because after one bite, that's it. You're finished. You have no desire to eat any more. They say hot dogs are made of lips and assholes? Try lips, assholes, and SALT. An entire sea full of salt. So much salt that I was afraid my skin was going to dry out, shrivel up, and leave me looking like some old pensioner on Miami Beach. Only without the hot bods and mojitos all around. Just more god damn salt. 

The only saving grace for this hot dog is that the owner of this particular 7-11 had red onions in the little bin instead of white ones. Classy, eh?

Otherwise? Disgusting. But what do you expect when you spend $3 on lunch?

Two skulls. A one-skull rating for sheer inedibility, a second bonus skull for marketing brilliance.

KFC Mashed Potato Bowl

Supposedly made of "all the things that made us famous," KFC's Famous Bowls come as a mashed potato bowl, rice bowl, and chicken & biscuit bowl.

Having loved KFC's potatoes and corn as a kid (seriously, was KFC ever famous for rice?) I opted for the mashed potato bowl. According to their marketing department: "We start with a generous serving of our creamy mashed potatoes, layered with sweet corn and loaded with bite-sized pieces of crispy chicken. Then we drizzle it all with our signature home-style gravy and top it off with a shredded three-cheese blend."

Let's follow their order.

Remember when KFC's mashed potatoes were good? Ok, maybe you never remember them that way. How about "acceptable?" Well, now they're barely below that threshold. What once almost passed as the all-American side dish of choice is now some watery, powdered mess that you wouldn't use to caulk your bathtub.

The corn's surprisingly good, not swimming in water like KFC's cobbettes usually are, and the bite-sized pieces of chicken are just what you'd expect from the Colonel. You wouldn't serve this at a fancy banquet, but you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy, either.

The gravy – like the mash underneath – isn't nearly as good as I remember. Or at least falsely remember. It, too, is watered down, runny, and pretty much as useless.

Overall this package would be OK at best, were it not covered with the egregious offense known as cheap shredded cheese. Perhaps it's my ethnic background, but I really don't understand the American obsession with putting shitty processed cheese on everything. I mean, honestly, do you really need a fistful of some faux, oil-based cheese-esque (and that's a stretch) product on top of your already dangerously unhealthy meal? Does it serve some purpose other than to mask the flavors you're barely getting as it is? Is it helping put your cardiologist's kids through undergrad?

What really confounds me here is that if these famous bowls are made of all the flavors that made KFC famous, why the hell is there cheese on it? The only dish here that's ever contained cheese is the Mac & Cheese side. Why couldn't they scoop that on top of it? Or a heap of Cole Slaw? Or a ladle full of BBQ Baked Beans? I mean, if you're going to feed me a disgusting heap of food that gives me 98% of my daily sodium intake, why not at least make it from the flavors I actually equate with the Kentucky Fried Chicken of the days of yore?

Perhaps the saddest part of this so-called Famous bowl is that it's so small. For something that's giving you all that aforementioned sodium, 54% of your daily value of fat (35g), and nearly half of your daily allowance of saturated fat (9g, or 45%), you'd think it would be a lot more filling.

Overall, I give 2 and a half skulls. It's not that deadly, and the bowl tastes decent enough, but between the starkly out-of-place and unnecessary cheese, small size, and hideous presentation (the plastic top makes the contents of the bowl steam and melt into mush), there really isn't any reason to come back for one of these. Ever.