In olden times, Sonic was the bee’s knees.
Their cherry limeades were refreshing, you could assault your tater tots with a respectable kind of chili and a delightfully processed cheese-product, and their burgers were served both hot and fresh. (Oh, and the foot long chili-cheese coneys. Man, those things were boss.) The carhops skated their way to your door with a smile, the milkshakes were of out-of-sight, and former teen idol Frankie Avalon was all over their advertising spots imploring you to drive in and stuff your face with nostalgic abandon.
Then everything fell apart.
Frankie left to go do, I don’t know, Frankie Avalon things. The smiling carhops were replaced with an unwholesome blend of surly teens and recent parolees. The food quality —once an oasis of flavor in a sea of grey-meat, limp-French fried fast food inequity — fell off. And then, you know, those two dudes showed up blabbering inanely in their car.
But look, get ready because Sonic is changing the game, you guys. Enter The ULTIMATE CHICKEN CLUB. (All caps mine, and added for emphasis.) I mean, it’s got “ultimate” RIGHT there in the name, so you know it’s legit. In fact, why aren’t you eating one right now?
Well, I’ll tell you why you aren’t: because it’s a swing and a miss.
Now, it’s not a “swing and totally miss, spin in a cartoon circle and fall on your butt” kind of thing. Maybe it’s akin to a foul tip or perhaps a valiant effort on a devastating curveball.
If you’re familiar with the concept of a “club” sandwich, you know what’s going on here — it mostly means someone added bacon and tomatoes. Sometimes there are toothpicks and diagonal cutting involved, but generally not on fast-food chicken sandwiches.
Anyway, in this case, it was cold black bacon and mealy garbage tomatoes. They rounded out this trip to Terror Town with some inoffensive, but useless, shredded lettuce, a thin, runny mayo (they claim is was black peppercorn mayo, but they’ve given me no reason to take them at their word), a sweaty slice of flavorless cheddar cheese, and a tempura-ish battered chicken breast filet that was as thick as a new package of loose-leaf notebook paper and just as delicious.
This sandwich was, in 13 words, a loose conglomeration of mediocre ingredients melded together in an orgy of disappointment. It tasted like a flavorless collection of toppings atop a bland chicken-block. Your uncle Gary does better at his Memorial Day cookouts, to be sure.
Really, the best thing this sandwich had going for it was the soft, fresh brioche bun, because it’s like that old adage goes, “everything’s better on brioche.”
There wasn’t anything new or interesting here, but honestly, that’s fine and it wasn’t the problem. Not every limited time fast food offering needs to reinvent the wheel. Let’s leave the stuffing and cramming and nachofication of America to those zany R&D people at Taco Bell. But in the meantime, you can win a lot of points with a solid chicken club sandwich. If you’re gonna do it, though, do it well. And if the execution leaves so much to be desired, maybe think about canning the “Ultimate” tag.
(Nutrition Facts – 1000 calories, 580 calories from fat, 64 grams of fat, 15 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 gram of trans fat, 100 milligrams of cholesterol, 2070 milligrams of sodium, 65 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, 39 grams of protein..)
Purchased Price: $4.79 (sandwich only)
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Sonic
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Respectable brioche. Frankie Avalon. Nostalgia. It’s fairly sizable.
Cons: As tasty as notebook paper. Burnt bacon. Sweat-cheese. 1,000 calories! The two annoying dudes blabbering in the car may have killed Frankie Avalon, we don’t know that they didn’t.
