REVIEW: KFC Fully Loaded Box Meal

With Guitar Hero’s market share thoroughly decimated by the popularity of Rock Band, it comes as no surprise that they would look towards the Colonel for a little promotional help. Pretending to rock out with Guitar Hero is now something to be ashamed of, like playing with K’NEX instead of LEGO or rooting for the LA Clippers.

Box meals from KFC seem to vary from location to location, with some offering popcorn chicken and others giving you a Snacker, but as Linkin Park once said as I cried myself to sleep in junior high: In the end, it doesn’t even matter. These meals will be the ruin of you. At easily over a thousand calories, not including the gigantic cauldron of soda that you’ll have to hold in your child’s car seat, either the fat, salt, or sheer mass intake will be sure to have you running to Yahoo Answers so that you can ask about the possible side effects of bulimia.

The meal came with a Snacker, a leg or thigh, two original crispy strips, two sides, and a biscuit. I might as well have asked them to deep fry the biscuit in that secret batter just to ensure that all non-side items taste exactly the same. I tried to entice my taste buds by asking for the Buffalo Snacker. That was a mistake. The sauce tasted like tomato paste that had been mixed with a bottle of pepper spray and nuked in the microwave until it completely exploded. You will almost certainly choke on the fumes, but at least you’ll have a few shreds of iceberg lettuce to numb the pain.

The rest of the meal is your standard KFC fare, deep fried chicken that seems to be getting saltier every year. I think some company did a chemical test on the secret “11 herbs and spices” recipe and exposed it as merely salt, pepper, and MSG. At this point, that revelation tastes pretty spot-on. Still, I have to admit that I enjoy KFC chicken when it comes in a reasonable quantity. And I must say that I am addicted to KFC’s potato wedges. It’s just too bad that only one in every two KFC’s seem to carry them. I have to restrain myself from hopping over the cashier’s table and recklessly throwing boxes of food around looking for these hot and crispy morsels whenever they don’t have them. But alas, I can’t jump that high.

The other side I chose was the iridescent and fluorescently orange macaroni and cheese. I would bet money on it glowing in the dark, which would be nice if I was decorating a garden and not actually ingesting it. You can choose healthier alternatives, but I have a sneaking suspicion that KFC only puts green beans on their menu to keep the FDA off their asses. I have never seen a human order it and doubt that they even have it in the restaurant. Let’s face it − you’ve gone this far, you might as well load yourself fully.

(Nutritional Facts – Varies depending on items, but it’s probably best not to know.)

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to TIB reader Hank the Tank for suggesting this feast.)

Item: KFC Fully Loaded Box Meal
Price: $6.99
Purchased at: KFC
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Lots of variety and choices for your taste buds to enjoy and for your gullet to suck down. Comes in a box that you can conveniently weigh on a scale to really make you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth. You can probably share the meal and still be satisfied.
Cons: Food can be kind of greasy. KFC’s buffalo sauce is liquid dynamite. Will make you feel like absolute crap. Listening to Linkin Park on those cloudy Mondays in middle school.

23 thoughts to “REVIEW: KFC Fully Loaded Box Meal”

  1. Ace, I don’t know what’s more depressing. You eating all of that food or the fact that you were in junior high and I just graduated from college when Linkin Park got big.

  2. Man, considering the way I eat sometimes, I could probably get away with eating one of those KFC boxes o’ grub without my heart being caught off guard… so I suppose I should be glad there’s no KFC here, since I can justify trying one so easily. 😉

  3. Wow, that meal looks so unhealthy, I think my cholesterol shot up 10 points just by looking at the picture. Thanks for “taking one for the team” there Ace!

  4. MSG (or enough of it) makes me sick, so KFC is one of those things I can’t eat anymore. 🙁 The only thing I can do is look forward to living through your review, Ace.

  5. Oh my, do you not have a Popeye’s around? I’ve eaten KFC exactly once and declared it utter crap. No flavor! Popeye’s wins my heart, even as it clogs it.

  6. I once heard this comedian describe KFC as Killer Fried Crack. The only reason I ever kick the KFC habit is that all of the fast food joints in my neighborhood closed.

    Now there’s just a bunch pho’ and teriaki joints.

  7. I’ve ordered the green beans and they are good. Not as healthy as you’d think though – they have ham or bacon or some pork product in them.

    But still tasty.

  8. Wow what a heart killer meal I can feel my heart valve
    shutter and quake time for a new pig valve. Stay away from this one.

  9. Looking at the photo of the spread shown, the ONE thing that throws me off is that TOWERING soda cup with the GUITAR HERO WORLD TOUR logo/banner emblazoned and screaming out loud on it.

    This is like the modern take on Sesame Street’s “One of these things are not like the other, common’, can you tell me which one?”. lol

    What Guitar Hero even remotely has to do with KFC (or fried chicken to be specific) beyond rockers with bad diets and/or corporate marketing-gone-desperate is beyond me.

    All I know is, as soon as I take the first bite into whatever’s in that box, my stereo better be blastin’ somethin’ like ZZ Top’s La Grange.

  10. KFC recently changed their chicken strips to taste exactly like their regular fried chicken. It saddened me because I don’t really like their chicken and the strips were much better.

    That said, I am now living in Anchorage so KFC might be my only place selling fried chicken so I may have to hit it up.

  11. My Husband disagree about KFC all the time. He thinks it’s the best thing since sliced bread! I think it’s nasty. The macaroni is waaaay to orange, the potatoes are instant, the gravy is gross, and the chicken greasy. I tried the greenbeans and they are over processed, mushy, and indeed have some sort of meat product in them causing them to taste like meat and not beans. KFC is cruel to chickens to boot!
    That’s my story, although not as funny as you Marvo, 🙂 and I’m sticking to it!
    Come by and see me some time.

  12. Marvo – To be fair, I didn’t eat it all in one sitting and Linkin Park was huge at the very tail end of my junior high days.

    NobleArc – What does a lazy Canadian eat when you have a fried chicken jonesin’? Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a kid on Degrassi eat fried chicken(I base all of my knowledge of Canada on that show).

    Chuck – I take a lot of things for the team, you can pretty much say that I’m the tackle dummy of internet food bloggers.

    Rick – I went to go see the Clippers last year because my friend gave me a ticket he couldn’t sell. We aren’t friends anymore.

    Heidi – I gained an immunity of MSG from growing up in an Asian household, it’s been very useful for my blogging career thus far.

    ratbuddy – If they’re going to do that, they might as well push cream of mushroom on it and a stack of fried onions. I’d probably order it then.

    Sharon – I have a Popeyes near my school which I consider my home away from home. It is certainly my favorite fried chicken chain(I now love broasted chicken as well), but KFC has so many more locations that I have to settle sometimes.

  13. luckinflux – I get all those places in Little Saigon and all of the dingy fast food joints in Santa Ana. I get the best and worst of both worlds.

    liz – You were?! You must be taking some amazing shrooms.

    Clevegal42 – I should have known. The corn on the cob is probably dipped in lard for extra flavor.

    Neil – That’s probably an accurate description, though I’m not sure “KFC’s Heart Killer Meal” sounds all that appealing. Even though it kind of does to me, now that I think about it.

    Pomai – That would be amazing. It would be like one of those musical Christmas cards, where opening the box would produce a tinny Zeppelin riff that keeps repeating while you eat.

    Natalie – I always thought that the chicken strips were kind of a rip off, you’re basically paying them extra to rip the pieces off of a chicken breast for you. But then that just might be my mind outthinking itself.

    Suzanne – (Ace/Marvo, happens all the time) I love KFC gravy, even though it’s processed to holy hell. I wish I was joking, but I used to take bits of chicken and skin, mix them in with the leftover gravy, and eat it like stew.

  14. Unfortunately, we have KFC in canada. I do like the poutine once a year when I’m desperate, but that is all. The one near my place just closed, thank god.

    The box idea is dumb, they should just keep everything in the massive bucket. that way you can just puke into the bucket when you are sick from consuming the fat/chemical/salt combo and throw the whole thing in the trash outside for the birds/squirrels to consume (if they even dare…).

  15. >>I think some company did a chemical test on the secret “11 herbs and spices” recipe and exposed it as merely salt, pepper, and MSG.

    Back in the ’80s, a guy named William Poundstone wrote a book called “Big Secrets,” which shed light on, well, big secrets. He claimed to have run an analysis on KFC breading and said it was … salt, pepper, and MSG (at least as I remember)–no herbs or spices found.

  16. When it comes to fried chicken, I usually enjoy A&W’s “Chubby Chicken”, as it’s cheap, and pretty tasty. Either that or a brand (does fast food have brands?) that seems to only be sold in convenience stores, etc, known as “Chester’s Chicken.”

  17. There’s a KFC-Bell right near my house. I keep forgetting that I hate it and stop by. Sometimes, I even order the chicken . . . and then realize why I can’t stand it.

    I much prefer the ghetto fried chicken places near my friend’s apartments in Brooklyn or Harlem. Well, when I’m not feeling out of place for being the big white guy. (not that that stops me from going there. Or restaurants where the entire menu’s in Mandarin)

  18. I’m with you on the potato wedges. They’re so much better than most fries. Last time I was at a KFC, they just had regular fries (it was also a Long John Silver). It pretty much ruined the meal for me. I wanted wedges!

  19. I love Chesters Chick!! Also, I get my chicken at our local Smiths…..VERY tasty, and you can get 8 pieces for 6 bucks. I do love everything KFC, but its sooo expensive! Every now and than I’ll do the buffet, and take a big purse:) Crave the mac and cheese like it comes in a crack pipe….will swing through the drive thru and get like 5 containers of ’em, just so I dont run out. Green beans too….I just skip the stange pork floating around in it.

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