REVIEW: Wendy’s Asian Cashew Chicken Salad

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Wendy's Asian Cashew Chicken Salad

Ah, the fast food salad. Perfect for those on a diet and in a hurry and who aren’t very picky and are already at the restaurant with a group and don’t mind dropping some decent change on some lean meat and a handful of greens.

If you fall into that flower-like Venn diagram of compromise, it means you’ve probably made some questionable decisions in your life to get to this place (Or you’re just a mom with kids… which means you’ve definitely made some questionable decisions. Bam! Pow! Splat!). Anyway, Wendy’s wants your sad money, so they rolled out this new thing, the Asian Cashew Chicken Salad.

It’s topped with chicken, edamame, red bell peppers, cucumbers, cashews and *takes deep breath* Marzetti Simply Dressed Light Spicy Asian Chili Vinaigrette dressing *ends deep breath*. Woo whee. That dressing name is so long it looks like a Panic! at the Disco song title, or a Jaden Smith tweet. Plus, it comes in packets and you put it on yourself (Cardio for the day!). It has a light peanut-y balsamic flavor and an escalating spice that initially lets the rest of the ingredients breathe a bit.

The chicken is pretty good—standard grilled fast food chicken, salty and warm. The red bell peppers taste like red bell peppers. Cucumbers are cucumbers. The edamame has burnt spots, because it’s “fire roasted” but there is no roast flavor in them and they kind of sit there helping out a little bit, attempting to round out the taste. The various lettuce mix is fine, crunchy and cold. The pieces of cashew come in their own baggy, as to not get soggy.

Here is where things get difficult. A salad with so many “heavy” items as this one has the problem of construction. You dump your own dressing. You dump your own cashews. There are never enough cashews. Sometimes Wendy’s might slip you two packets of dressing. Sometimes one. Your mileage may vary. What if you put all the dressing in one corner of the salad? You’re screwed.

It’s tough to collect a bit of slippery soybean, lettuce, cashew and bell pepper in one bite on a plastic fork. When that happens, it’s a good salad. But that mostly does not happen. It would be a different story if all the ingredients were individually bright (they’re not), and if the dressing pulled all the components together into a unified front (it doesn’t). The dressing progressively gets spicier and the subtle peanut flavoring gets overpowered at a point, losing any semblance of depth. With all the fork dancing around the plate scooping up the toppings to make perfect bites, the second half of the meal is straight up spicy lettuce.

The Asian Cashew Chicken Salad is actually very low in calories, but also costs a pretty penny. You must be shelling out for that diet. Weird, some of the fattest people I know are Asian (E. Honda, Sammo Hung, Totoro). All in all, it’s not bad, but it’s not great either. But when the planets align and Hanukkah lands on Thanksgiving again, and we are put in a position of purchasing a fast food salad, it’s a solidly okay bet.

So this might be the best it gets as far as fast food salads go, Moms With Kids. Then one day your kids will be at Wendy’s 3000 ordering a Western Cashew Chicken Salad. (Ingredients are the same but Future China now owns the planet.) But maybe it doesn’t have to be this way. Break the cycle. Go with a Baconator and a side of chili next time. Enjoy your life. Love yourself.

(Nutrition Facts – Full Size – 380 calories, 120 calories from fat, 13 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 970 milligrams of sodium, 1130 milligrams of potassium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 18 grams of sugar, 6 grams of fiber, and 36 grams of protein.)

Item: Wendy’s Asian Cashew Chicken Salad
Purchased Price: $6.29
Size: Full size (half size available)
Purchased at: Wendy’s
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Chicken is decent. When all components are in one bite, tastes pretty good.
Cons: Hard to get even distribution with ingredients. Back half of meal is just spice in mouth. Pretty expensive.

REVIEW: Tim Hortons Tims Crispy Chicken Sandwich

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Tim Hortons Tims Crispy Chicken Sandwich

I can’t say I was super excited to try Tims Crispy Chicken Sandwich — and yes, that’s Tims, not Tim’s. Just as Tim Hortons is oddly missing an apostrophe, so too is this sandwich. Clearly, someone at Tim Hortons hates punctuation.

When a fast food item doesn’t even look particularly good in its publicity shot, you know you’re probably in trouble (though to their credit, the actual sandwich looks remarkably similar to its beauty shot, so they’re at least not trying to trick you into thinking you’re getting something that you’re not). But after my pleasant surprise with the Tim Hortons Pretzel Bagel, I went in hoping for the best.

If, when you look at the picture of this sandwich, you think to yourself, “That looks like something I could buy from the freezer section at Costco,” you are correct. It tastes like something you could buy from the freezer section at Costco. If, on the other hand, you look at that picture and think, “That looks pretty good,” you are wrong. Get better eyeballs.

I will give this sandwich one thing: they’re not kidding around with the whole “crispy” thing. I’m fairly certain the chicken is baked rather than fried, so I was expecting something in the middle ground between crispy and soggy, but that was absolutely not the case. In fact, I’d say crispy isn’t even the right word, as that implies a delicateness that isn’t present here. This was full-out crunchy.

That sounds like it should be one of the best qualities of this sandwich; crunchy breaded chicken is delicious, right? Right. Well, usually. Somehow, with the style of breading employed here, it just comes off as oddly overbearing. It’s nothing too offensive, but it’s slightly off-putting.

The breading otherwise doesn’t have a ton of flavour, other than that generic saltiness that you’d expect from the el-cheapo breaded chicken you’d dig out of the back of the freezer at the supermarket.

Tim Hortons Tims Crispy Chicken Sandwich Side

As for the chicken itself, it’s processed chicken slurry formed into a sandwich shape, rather than an actual piece of chicken breast. It’s dry and slightly spongy, with only the vaguest chicken flavour. Mostly, it just tastes of the aforementioned generic, processed saltiness.

Otherwise, the toppings are completely no-frills: a couple of mealy tomato slices, some lettuce, and a little bit of mayo. The soft, fresh bun was actually pretty good, and almost certainly the best thing about the sandwich.

Seriously, this is a mystifyingly mediocre sandwich. This is hospital-cafeteria-caliber food. That wouldn’t be so bad if it were being marketed as a budget offering — say, two bucks, or three at the very most. It would still be a bad sandwich, but at least you could justify it somewhat. “It’s not very good,” you’d say, “but at least it’s cheap!” The sadness in your eyes would belie the truth — that nothing could possibly justify willingly consuming such a blatantly mediocre sandwich — but at the very least you could take some small solace in its affordability.

But no such solace is provided here: they’re charging a full $4.99, putting this right in line with the premium chicken sandwiches at other fast food joints. And those sandwiches are, across the board, much, much better than this thing. Heck, the location I ate at was a Tim Hortons / Wendy’s combo restaurant, which means I could have walked a few steps to the right and purchased a far superior sandwich for the exact same price. A sandwich made out of an actual chicken breast, with a texture that doesn’t resemble a meaty sponge, and with breading that doesn’t taste like sadness.

This certainly isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever eaten. I’d go as far as to say that it’s perfectly edible; there’s nothing particularly gross about it. But there’s nothing particularly good about it, either. And it’s flat-out offensive that they’re charging a premium price for what is ever-so-clearly not a premium product.

(Nutrition Facts – 440 calories, 15 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat, 1000 milligrams of sodium, 58 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fibre, 3 grams of sugar, and 20 grams of protein.)

Item: Tim Hortons Tims Crispy Chicken Sandwich
Purchased Price: $4.99 CAN
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Tim Hortons
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: The bun is pretty good. I feel like I should put something else here, so, um… the condiments were fine?
Cons: About on par with something you’d get at a cafeteria. Way overpriced. Dry, spongey, processed-tasting chicken. Overly crunchy breading. Tastes like sadness.

REVIEW: McDonald’s Premium Crispy Chicken Bacon Clubhouse Sandwich

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McDonald's Premium Crispy Chicken Bacon Clubhouse Sandwich

For years, I believed the “special sauce” on the McDonald’s Big Mac deserved better.

It deserved a better name because “special sauce” doesn’t sound so…um, special. Let’s be honest, Grimace Snot Sauce would’ve been a better name. I also believed the tangy sauce deserved to be sauce-gunned on sandwiches other than the Big Mac.

Well, almost 50 years since the introduction of the Big Mac, we’re finally get Grimace Snot Sauce on sandwiches that aren’t a Big Mac and don’t have beef. (Although, hardcore fast food aficionados would wipe the Grimace Snot Sauce from their mouths and then point out that there’s been Chicken Big Macs in other countries.) Why hasn’t it happened sooner? Fear of a special sauce shortage, cannibalization of Big Mac sales, or will Ray Kroc’s ghost appear and warn us that the end of the world is nigh? I dunno.

What I do know is that I’m glad it happened, even though it could mean the end of the world, because McDonald’s new line of Bacon Clubhouse sandwiches are damn tasty, especially the Premium Crispy Chicken Bacon Clubhouse Sandwich.

As you can see in the pictures above, there’s a lot going on with this sandwich. Along with the secret sauce, the sandwich is also made up of lettuce, tomatoes, a crispy chicken breast filet, a slice of white cheddar, Applewood smoked bacon, and caramelized onion on an artisan bun.

McDonald's Premium Crispy Chicken Bacon Clubhouse Sandwich Bun

Let’s start off with that bun. The first thing I noticed about it was how shiny it was. The top glistens like the skin of a liar on the witness stand, but it isn’t greasy. The two halves are toasted, which help prevent the bun from falling apart. While eating the sandwich, I could’ve sworn the bun had a slight sweet bread vibe to it, but whatever the bun has, it’s good, I want it available with every McDonald’s sandwich, and it makes the other McDonald’s buns taste like what they give with water to prisoners.

McDonald's Premium Crispy Chicken Bacon Clubhouse Sandwich Top

Let’s move on to the bacon. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, McDonald’s Applewood smoked bacon is quite good for fast food bacon. It’s thick, has a wonderful salty porky flavor, and there’s a crispiness to them along the edges, which was absent in the previous pork strips McDonald’s called “bacon.” My sandwich came with four strips, which, after reading other reviews, seems to be an anomaly. (Also, an anomaly, the two tomato slices that came with my sandwich.)

The special sauce’s sweet and tangy flavor goes extremely well with the somewhat thick crispy chicken breast filet, which is the same chicken in McDonald’s other premium chicken sandwiches. So well that I still can’t believe McDonald’s didn’t go sauce gun trigger happy on their other sandwiches sooner. The crispy chicken breast filet was for the most part crispy on the edges and wasn’t dried out. The slice of white cheddar didn’t make an impact with this sandwich. Its flavor got lost among the sauce and caramelized grilled onions.

Speaking of the caramelized grilled onions, a part of me wishes they weren’t included because they took away some of the secret sauce’s flavor. But that can easily be fixed by asking for extra sauce or holding the onions. I mean, the sandwich has so much going on that I don’t think the onions would be missed.

The McDonald’s Premium Crispy Chicken Bacon Clubhouse Sandwich is the best tasting chicken sandwich on the McDonald’s menu. Some of you may scoff at its premium price, which is in the $4.50-$6 range, but I think it’s worth the price and possible special sauce shortage, cannibalization of Big Mac sales, or the end of the world.

(Nutrition Facts – 750 calories, 340 calories from fat, 38 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 1750 milligrams of sodium, 65 grams of carbohydrates, 16 grams of sugar, 4 grams of fiber, 36 grams of protein.)

Item: McDonald’s Premium Crispy Chicken Bacon Clubhouse Sandwich
Purchased Price: $5.89*
Size: N/A
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Best tasting McDonald’s chicken sandwich. The artisan bun is better than any other bun McDonald’s offers. Meaty, thick, and slightly crispy Applewood smoked bacon strips. Secret sauce goes wonderfully with the crispy chicken filet. Green lettuce.
Cons: Caramelized grilled onions seem unnecessary and they take away some of the secret sauce’s flavor. McDonald’s not sauce-gunning their secret sauce on other sandwiches sooner. Will be pricey to some.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

REVIEW: McDonald’s Bacon Clubhouse Burger

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McDonald's Bacon Clubhouse Burger

Ronald McDonald clicked his pen. It was the first sound that caught his attention, even though the third quarter numbers had been flying around the conference room for half an hour. A uni-ball Jetstream. Click. The muffled adult-Peanuts voices chorused into a wave of nonsense. Click. Outside the window he could see a hawk. Click. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple knocked against his tie knot. Click. Ronald darkened his previously doodled Stussy “S” on his notepad. Click. Ronald gave a tiny nod. Click.

So another McDonald’s burger finally has special sauce. The Bacon Clubhouse Burger sports a new bun, bacon, and caramelized onions on top of the special sauce. That seems like it should be a bigger deal that McDonald’s put their formerly exclusive Big Mac topping on another thing. Maybe it’s not because customers can ask for it literally any time as a condiment and put it on any sandwich. Or even things that aren’t sandwiches. Bring it home. Put it on some Brussels sprouts. Put it on your cat. Put it on as a facemask, Mrs. Doubtfire style (Hellooo!). Or maybe freeing the sauce is not a big deal because it’s flanked by so many other new components that work together to make a pretty damn good fast food burger. Teamwork, guys. But f’reals, on this Miami Heat of a burger the special sauce is LeBron*.

The bun. Oh, the bun. So soft, so buttery. It sets the tone for the entire sandwich and is probably the softest roll in recent fast food memory. The bun of a burger is like a mattress. You want to have a good one if you’re gonna spend most of your time sleeping on/eating it. Though if the bun is the bed, there’s one hell of a mating ritual going on inside. The special sauce lends a light tang, never overpowering.

McDonald's Bacon Clubhouse Burger Topless

The caramelized onions are sweet and deepen the flavor of the sauce, combining with the slice of creamy white cheddar to coat the burger in a very full taste. The pieces of bacon show up every once in a while too, crispy and adding a bit of a salt kick. The sweetness of the sauce-onion combo overshadows the potential smoke and sugar power of the bacon a bit, but the pig also serves as a good textural change of pace. The tomato is fine. The lettuce is fine. Sorry, you guys don’t get in on the mattress fun, but you can watch if you like.

The actual burger patty is tricky. McDonald’s is using their Quarter Pounder patty here, and as any frequent McDonald’s patron knows, sometimes the meat can be a crapshoot. I ate two Bacon Clubhouse Burgers for this review and the first time I was treated to a rubbery, dry disc that really highlighted a problem. With this burger, McDonald’s is setting itself up to compete with other “fancy” burgers, and while the toppings elevate the Bacon Clubhouse in taste, it left me desiring some decent beef. It was like putting lipstick on a pig. I guess that’s a bit confusing, considering there’s actual swine on this. It was like putting lipstick on Robin Williams (It was a run by fruiting!).

The second time I had the burger it was leagues better. The meat was moist and served as a nice base for the meal. The problem remained, though. The star was most definitely the melded combination of toppings and the bun and not the flimsy, thin protein. Nothing like some so-so cow to remind us we’re still eating McDonald’s. That being said, both times I was very impressed by the depth of flavors in the sandwich and I think that it might be the best burger on the menu in a long time, if not ever.

*LeBron James is special sauce. Erik Spoelstra is the bun. Dwyane Wade is bacon. Chris Bosh is caramelized onions. Shane Battier is white cheddar. Ray Allen is tomato. The beef is Mario Chalmers. Lettuce is Norris Cole.

(Nutrition Facts – 720 calories, 360 calories from fat, 40 grams of fat, 15 grams saturated fat, 1.5 grams trans fat, 115 milligrams of cholesterol, 1470 milligrams of sodium, 51 grams of carbohydrates, 15 grams of sugar, 4 grams of fiber, 39 grams of protein.)

Item: McDonald’s Bacon Clubhouse Burger
Purchased Price: $4.69
Size: N/A
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Great flavors. Cheese, special sauce, onions combine to elevate burger to next level. Burger bun is so soft.
Cons: Burger patty is unimproved.

REVIEW: KFC Big Boss (Canada)

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KFC The BIg Boss 2

When it comes to fast food gimmicks, few items can claim to be quite as successful as KFC’s Double Down, the cheese and bacon sandwich with two pieces of fried chicken as a bun. That thing hit the cultural zeitgeist like nobody’s business, and for a while there it seemed like everyone was talking about it.

It was with that in mind, I’m sure, that KFC Canada introduced the Big Boss, which is essentially a Big Mac, but with fried chicken patties instead of beef. It’s a tantalizing proposition that sounds just crazy enough to be delicious.

If you’ve had a Big Mac, then you know exactly what to expect: the shredded lettuce, pickles, onions, Thousand Island-esque special sauce, the three layers of bun, and the single slice of cheese. It’s literally a Big Mac with fried chicken instead of beef; KFC has done nothing to shake up the flavours to make it more chicken-appropriate.

I was actually pretty excited to try the Big Boss. I like excessive novelty sandwiches more than I should probably admit. You wanna replace the bun in a hamburger with grilled cheese sandwiches? Yeah, I’ll eat that! Wanna add more patties than any reasonable burger should contain? Sure, I’ll try it. Replace the bun with fried chicken? I’m all over that.

So it is with no small amount of sadness that I must report that the Big Boss is not particularly good.

KFC The Big Boss

The first thing I noticed was that this was maybe the most haphazardly-assembled sandwich I’ve ever been served at a fast food joint. I was planning on cutting it in half so I could get a picture of the midsection, but the whole thing was so precarious that I was honestly afraid that it would crumble into pieces if I messed with it too much. But of course, you can’t expect anything too pristine from a place like KFC; what really matters is the taste.

The patties are similar to what you’d find in a Big Crunch, but thinner. The breading is standard KFC fare, and it’s expectedly tasty. But man, the chicken itself is absurdly dry. It is surprisingly, unpleasantly dry. I’m not sure if it’s the thinness of the chicken or what, but it is considerably more dry than a standard KFC Big Crunch patty.

Compounding the dryness issue was the surfeit of bread which, like the chicken, was weirdly dry. I think it might have been a little bit stale, or maybe it was microwaved? I have a hard time accounting for how it got so dry. The lack of moisture from the sandwich itself certainly didn’t help matters.

My first few bites were just a punishing mass of dry chicken, bread, and unmelted cheese, not dissimilar in texture to trying to eat a handful of saltines. Things improved somewhat once I hit a pocket of sauce, onions, and pickles around the centre of the sandwich. Even then, this just made me long for the comparative magnificence of a Big Mac, as the sauce tasted almost identical to Mac sauce. I like Big Macs well enough, but it’s pretty much the greatest thing I’ve ever eaten compared to this ill-advised monstrosity of a sandwich.

I got unlucky, with a sandwich that appeared as though it had been assembled by an arthritic chimp. But even if it had been picture perfect, I still don’t think it would have been particularly good. The flavours just never cohere in any meaningful way. Beef and chicken are two very different things; just because something works with one, doesn’t mean it’s going to work with the other.

Sadly, the Big Boss is more conversation piece than viable sandwich. I’m sure a lot of people will try it, just out of sheer curiosity (the “LOLWTF a Big Mac with fried chicken patties!” factor), but I can’t imagine many will order it a second time. It’s pretty bad.

(Nutrition Facts – 600 calories, 30 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 70 milligrams of cholesterol, 900 grams of sodium, 53 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fibre, 7 grams of sugar, 29 grams of protein.)

Item: KFC Big Boss (Canada)
Purchased Price: $4.99 CAN
Size: N/A
Purchased at: KFC
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Tasty breading on the chicken patties. Sauce tastes a lot like a Big Mac’s.
Cons: Dry chicken. Dry bread. Dry overload. Unmelted cheese. Big Mac flavours taste incongruous with chicken. Messy if not assembled properly. Makes the ghost of Colonel Sanders cry.

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