Trip number 3 to KFC

Condiments Don: Week 3 and suddenly things have gone a bit crazy in luncheondeal land! A guest reviewer enters the fray! A sudden and dramatic (actually it was mid-paced and diplomatic) change of venue! Read on, fellow lunch warrior..

Condiments Don and Eater re-up once more on a sultry Thursday lunchtime all ready to review the hell out of the menu at the Duke of Abercrombie pub on Old Broad Street, however upon our arrival and perusal of the menu with this week's special cameo reviewer, Blogboynumber3, we sack it off and head elsewhere. Why? Because, like most other pubs in this area, their lunch menus are massively overpriced and cater almost exclusively for crushingly mundane work team outings for office workers who don't really talk to their colleagues. So rather than mimic said lunches and sit there in near-silence picking through a £12 plate of tepid pub food we decide to do what any rational person would do - head to KFC.
I'm finding this a bit of a voyage into the unknown, not because I'm some sort of fast food snob who think's that the place's clientèle is made up of walking Broken Britain Daily Mail headline fodder, but because I don't think I've been to KFC sober before. What do they even sell? Chicken, but in what denominations? I'm feeling on edge. After a while scanning the menu I order a Spicy Zinger meal (I think) with a Pepsi and, after some discussion with my patient till operative, a side of coleslaw. It arrives in a cardboard tray that would hold a flatscreen tv, which seems unnecessary. What did you go for, Eater?

Eater: I thought your thing was that new burger they have that has two breast fillets in it. 

You're right in saying that stuff about rip off pubs but KFC is rip off too so not really sure if it's the rational opposite. 

I can't remember what I had now.  Think it was a Zinger meal and two extra pieces of chicken.  As always with KFC I was dissapointed with the chips, the bread on the burger was stale and the beans I got took ages to cool down.  Also I think the pieces of chicken have got smaller as time has progressed.

CD: Yeah the thing that most struck me about our trip to KFC was that I wa still really hungry afterwards - the chicken seemed noticably small, and it was a pretty dry affair too. I didn't even touch my 'slaw; who wants slaw from KFC? Not me, that's who. The chips tasted like pulped newspaper as well. Really not feeling it from KFC, I guess it's true that I need to be drunk to the point of virtually not being able to read to 'enjoy' their food. Most certainly not a strong par, as Tempa T or Westwood might say. We didn't even have a beer afterwards. Burger King beats it hands down.

Where shall we go this week then? I quite fancy that Kruger place you mentioned.

Eater: I probably would have eaten at least a mouthful of the coleslaw if I
knew it was just being chucked.  What drink did you get?  I got Pepsi
Max.  I always get that from KFC.  It's probably the least offensive
diet drink.  Think you have to pay 30p extra if you want orange juice
with a meal which is really rubbish.

Kruger is a good idea.

I want to go to an oyster place one time too.  I'll add it to the list.

Blogboynumber3: KFC wasn't great (I think it was a poor KFC as KFCs go even) but as you say it was a lesser evil than any of those pubs selling wetherspoons food for 4 times the wetherspoons price.
I think KFC is interesting. Back in the day, Kentucky Fried Chicken was amazing, and Kensey's Fried Chicken (best passing off attempt I ever saw) and all the other imitations were much worse. Now I think KFC is average for flavour compared to your average chicken shop, and is bottom of the pile in terms of value for money.

I bet Yum Brands have thought this all through and decided the market for hard-core chicken people who care about whether Miami Fried Chicken tastes better, and want to pay only 99p for 4 chicken wings, is not one they wish to pander to. They are focussed on the Burger King crowd of people who are too rich to worry about how rip off stuff is, and will pay 4 times the price for something more socially acceptable without ever considering what anything tastes like. Basically the same people who go to those pubs.

Also, that is scandalous if true about charging more for orange juice.

CD: KFC has always been a bit under the radar of fast-food unhealthiness abuse. People obviously just think if you eat KFC you deserve to have a fat-man heart attack, and you are expecting one. So why would you want to see nutritional information, or eat any fruit/veg? If you wanted to pretend you wanted healthy fast food you would go to McDonalds.

Eater: Just Googled but can't find anything on that 30p extra for orange
juice thing.  I am sure it is the case but maybe they just do it in
the KFCs that are franchises.  I know that they sometimes charge 10p
for sauces in McD franchises and sometimes they only put one piece of
cheese in quarterpounders when you are supposed to have two.  Wonder
how they stop franchisees damaging the brand like that.

KFC don't automatically put salt on their chips which is relatively healthy.

CD: I think the mandatory non-salting of chips is more than offset by the eye-wateringly (literally, figuratively) high salt content of the chicken parts. I sharde a bargain bucket with someone a few months ago and my kidneys ached for days afterwards. The diminished expectations of KFC is sort of heartening, I bet that one we went to do does crazy business what with it being situated outside of a busy station AND being next to a large police station. The food just seemed shrunken, you'd have to spend some serious paper in there to actually get something vaguely impressive / be full afterwards.

Maybe we should find out the names of all the KFC name brand chicken rip off places in London and review them. I seem to recall some grime star (might have been Chipmunk) doing a chicken shop review session, it was predictably boring.

Eater: There is a Zenith FC down my road which I am scared to go in now.  The
man in there is a compulsive liar.  I think a lot of chicken shop men
are weird and will just try to chat up any female customer.  I have
been in there a few times on my own and he has asked me loads of
questions and told me a load of far fetched things about his life,
once when I went in he told me he had a dog identical to my one which
was tied up outside the shop and then when I went in there with a male
(my brother) he made out he he didn't recognise me and sort of stared
into the middle distance, not making eye contact with either of us as
we placed our order and got our food.

There is also a KFC down my road and the man in there asked where I
was from, I told him and then he gave me a free three piece meal for
my trouble.

Shall we publish this boring crap now?

CD: Creepy. Maybe that's the only opportunity chicken establishment owners have to meet laydeez. I can't imagine their success rate being too high.

Right, let's blog this thing and try to make people read it.

Eater: chicken man chirpsing

Do you want to go to lunch at 12?

Blogboynumber3:  May I add: I'm not sure kidneys can ache.

I have often thought internal organs were hurting (e.g. liver after alcohol) but tried to 'reassure' myself with the idea that internal organs don't have nerves in them, or if they do, the nerves might detect swelling but probably not general deterioration, so I was probably just suffering from some mental health hallucination.

I have nervously researched this at such low points, but obviously Google just told me I had cancer.

luncheondeal's outing to Spitalfields

Eater: Kota Satay was okay but not sure I'd go there again.  The portion size was acceptable and the noodles tasted regular but the chicken had that strange texture that I think might mean it was pumped with water to fill it out.  The chilli sauces on offer were acceptable.

The Ten Bells was good, I would go there again. 

So how do you be "balls out, non literal" about stuff then? I just Googled "gonzo" and it hasn't helped. I think I might like literal descriptions so I'll have to continue, possibly to our detriment

CD: I quite enjoyed my food actually: a decent sized portion, tasty noodles, plus the peanut sauce was delicious. I thought the chilli sauce was a bit gross though, too stodgy and with a crass heat rather than any kind of subtle flavour. The best bit is clearly The Ten Bells, it's fun going in there before all the hipster douchebags from the local area make their way down there and instead there's just a few stray City boys with their ties off for lunch. Oi oi! It does feel like a bit of a rip-off eating around there though, for approximately £6 the food is still only moderately tasty and the environment feels quite strange and sterile. Where do you want to go and eat next week?

Sorry it took me ages to respond! Thursday and yesterday were mad busy. Gonzo is like Hunter S Thompson, so I guess we shouldn't go that mental for the sake of lunch reviews. I dunno..it's quite hard this. I guess just attempting to transcend literally describing the food and into something more amusing / engaging..not sure how to do this though.

Eater: I though the peanut sauce was watery.  I wonder what the set up is with those shops.  There wasn't much choice on the menu and it was all not great quality.  They've got a good deal going there, serving fairly crappy food for quite high prices.  I am jealous of them.  Jealousy seems to be a running theme for me.  I wonder how much you could make from a place like that.  The benches to eat on surrounding the place weren't that interesting, you are right.  Those American tourists opposite us weren't saying anything worth eavesdropping on.   

CD: Yeah the whole place is primed for tourists and/or wealthy City boys who don't mind paying over the odds for moderate food. Idiots. I bet you could rake it in if you had the cash to start somewhere like that up. Oh well. It's all a bit overtly kooky / cutesy / Time Out blog-ish round there, you know? I just like old man pubs!

luncheondeal's first outing to those beigel shops on Brick Lane

Condiments Don (CD): I guess I should set the scene a little bit before we kick off. My lunch is boring. Extremely, dangerously boring. All I do five days of the week is crushsh two moribund butties into my face whilst sat in front of my work computer reading the BBC Football transfers gossip page. That's it. The sandwiches I make to bring to work aren't terrible, but they definitely aren't tasty. They function solely to make me Not Hungry. Well, no more! As of today this will be the case only four days a week. Rejoice, tastebuds! Thursday lunchtime is thy saviour.


For our first outing myself and my partner in pies, Eater, have taken a trip up Brick Lane in London's trendy London to partake in some red-hot bagel action. Hold tight. Here's Eater with a some deetz about today's establishment(s).


Eater:  We went to those two beigel shops.  It's interesting that they never shut and exist there, next to each other.  I wonder how well they know each other and which one of them does better. I liked my beigels.  I think the one from the yellowy signed shop was better.  It was fresher and the filling was tastier.  I got liver sausage and gherkin from there and salmon, cream cheese and cucumber from the white signed shop.  Probably for a fair comparison I should have got the same thing from each shop.  The cucumber from the white signed shop was a bit off and the beigel was pre prepared and a bit warm, unlike the other place where it was freshly made.  Also, the yellowy signed shop was cheaper, which is better.  So today, I'd say the yellowy signed shop was the best one.  Did you see that man in front of me in there?  He sounded like I'd imagine Ronnie and Reggie Kray would.


CD: Yeah it's quite strange that in all of east London the two 24 hour beigel shops are situated virtually next door to one another. You'd think they'd be better off being further apart and getting more trade..also, do beigel places need a special license to be constantly open? Anyway, I always end up going to the white signed shop because the salt beef beigels that do are next level, and today's was no different - completely amazing. They don't hold back on the beef (which is so moist and flavoursome), and the gerkins are crunchy and zesty. The actual beigel was a bit clammy, but I kind of ignore that as I'm shovelling the beef into my mouthhole. That said, I kind of prefer the vibe of the yellow signed place next door; it's a bit more grimy and fun, plus their range is more exotic. I supplemented my salt beefer with a chopped herring and gherkin beigel, which was a revelation. The gherkin's crunch and sharpness offset the herring perfectly, plus it was like £1.30 - recession-proof if ever I saw / ate it. So in the end it's the same old story: you're spoilt for food places in London, especially when they decide to open within 10 yards of one another. Your liver sausage beigel looked wild, I'm definitely gonna try one soon. That east end gangster fellow was great! I wonder if he accentuates his schtick so that people will think he's an old east end bad ass? Either way, it was a strong look. The ladies who work behind the counter in both places are amazing, I bet it'd be fun to hang out in ther for 6 hours drinking tea and eating beigels just to listen to their conversations. The Krays owned a pub near there (The Carpenter's Arms) because it was the only place they were safe to drink in. It's quite nice, although (inevitably) it's very trendy now. So anyway, our beigels were bookended by two very swift halves in the Pride of Spitalfields!


Eater: I was jealous of your salt beef beigel, there did seem to be a lot of beef in it.  I didn't get one because of the price.  My liver sausage and gherkin one was £1.40 and my salmon, cream cheese and cucmber one was £1.70.  I still owe you £5.  I was jealous of your herring one too really.  Next time I'll get what you got.  Also, I might get three as I was still a bit hungry after my two.  The last time I went to those shops, which was about a year ago, a woman behind the counter was telling off a Japanese tourist for not being more vocal about his order taking ages.  We need to do a more scientic comparison of the two places by getting the same thing from both. 


I liked that pub we went in.  It looked good in there and the choice of beers was okay and the two women working in there were quite pleasant.  I noticed that they sold salt beef sandwiches for £3.50.  We should go there again.  Also, we'll have to go to The Carpenter's Arms next Thursday.  It's your turn to choose the food venue. 


I wonder what the maximum consumption of food/drink we could manage over a lunch time is.  It's ridiculous that we had to frantically shovel our food/drink down to fit everything into a lunch break, gluttons don't deserve dignity though, I suppose.

CD: The more I think about my herring beigel the more I rate it - mad tasty it was. I think for the purposes of this project we should try to order differently so that we can compare and contrast, otherwise we're just going to be agreeing with each other. Plus being a bit jealous of the other persons food choice is part of the fun, right? Three beigels is crazy talk! The Pride of Spitalfield is a good little pub, I used to take my cousin there when he was 17, I think I could happily sit in there all day drinking Doombar. I agree, we should order some sort of spread or platter in there one lunchtime, plus that way we'd be able to drink more as well. Which reminds me, we should keep out eyes peeled for local CAMRA festivals to go to. I think it'd be funny occasionally to offset our visits to semi obscure / trendy local eateries by going to KFC or something. Switch it up, y'know? I might pick somewhere in Spitalfields market for us to eat at next week, or maybe the farmers market in Broadgate Square. I dunno.