The Double Down

Mike D here. Shaun L. has been kind enough to write a review for mikedidonato.com describing his experience with KFC’s new Double Down Sandwich. Take it away Shaun!

The morning of April 18, 2010, I landed at JFK, returning from a 3-week long trip to Brazil for work. There was only one thing on my mind. Kentucky. Fried. Chicken.

While Brazil has beautiful women and Churrascaria’s as far as the eye can see, they are missing one thing: KFC. While I was abroad I saw via the interwebs that KFC was finally letting the infamous Double Down out into the wild! Alas, I was out of the country and would have to count down the days until my return flight home.

On Tuesday, April 20, after much needed recuperation, I decided to stroll down to my local KFC in Meriden (aka the armpit of CT) for lunch to see if the mighty Double Down was able to live up to all the hype. 5 dollars and 29 cents later, I had a deep fried mess of a chicken sandwich in my possession. They have a grilled version that you can buy but that would just be ABSURD and STUPID. I’m not sure if mine was packaged correctly as it came in a KFC Wing’s box complete with wing wax paper but Whatever. It didn’t change the fact that this thing is two fried pieces of chicken for bread, with bacon, cheese, and some special sauce in the middle. AKA, a gift from the Gods of Olympus.

Double Down
Greasy.

A few obligatory close-up shots later and it was time to eat. How did it taste? Well, exactly like you would expect: fried chicken with some cheese. If you love the Colonel’s Original Recipe than you’ll probably enjoy this. The cheese was a nice touch and the sauce was like the Colonel’s 12 herbs and spices were liquefied into a ‘creme de tangoscity.’ KFC most definitely has a PhD in sauce-ology. As for the bacon; I didn’t even taste it. I had two scrawny pieces of bacon between those two luscious deep-fried chicken breasts. For a sandwich that is basically the epitome of America, they sure did skimp on the bacon. Wendy’s baconator and KFC’s double down need to get down and dirty and make a love child that is overflowing with bacon. Overall it’s a pretty tasty sandwich, but make sure that you have plenty of exfoliating face wash (the kind with those micro scrubbers is preferred) handy so that you can remove the multiple layers of grease that will form on your face within minutes after devouring.

The big question however is whether or not it was worth it? For $5.29 for the sandwich alone and $7.40 for the meal (tax included in CT) which includes potato wedges and a drink, I’d have to say HELL NO. While it is a tasty morsel, it didn’t do a great job of filling me up. For $4 I could have gone to McDonald’s and bought 3 McChickens and a McDouble and been full. Would I have been sick? Yes. Would I have been full? Hell Yes. For even less I could have made a PB&J sandwich and ate about 1 cup worth of Cheeze-Its and I would have been equally satisfied. I think that ultimately you are paying for a gimmick. This thing should be priced at $3.50 or made larger. I’ll just factor the extra $1.79 as paying for the luxury to eat something so utterly ridiculous. Nice try KFC, but you’ll have to do better next time to impress me.

13 thoughts on “The Double Down

  • 5/11/2010 at 10:31 am
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    Not having seen one in person yet, would you say it would be a viable alternative to disassemble one double-down, put each breast (and maybe some of the bacon) between two slices of bread, and make two “normal” sandwiches out of this all-meat sandwich?

    Reply
    • 5/11/2010 at 10:35 am
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      Hmmm, this is a rather ingenious idea. I would say instead of using bread, use KFC biscuits. I don’t know if this would help out on the fullness factor however. I guess there’s only one way to find out…

      Reply
      • 5/11/2010 at 11:20 am
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        McDonalds has a southern chicken biscuit sandwich, which is the only reason i go now.
        Let me tell you, a chicken biscuit sandwich with KFC chicken or even better, Popeye’s chicken, would be KILLER.
        As in killer flavor, not unhealthy killer… unless you’re allergic to AWESOME. In which case, you’d be screwed.
        With FLAVOR!

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        • 5/11/2010 at 11:32 am
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          People actually eat the chicken biscuit sandwich? I didn’t even realize it was still on the menu. The McChicken is far superior and cheaper than that sad attempt at a chicken sandwich. Speaking of which, I paid $6 USD for a McChicken in a Brazilian airport. INSANE, but totally worth it.

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        • 5/11/2010 at 3:19 pm
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          i definitely rank the southern chicken sandwich and the previously mentioned chicken biscuit over the mcchicken.

          that said, chick-fil-a for the win.

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  • 5/11/2010 at 6:18 pm
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    This post was everything I hoped and dreamed.

    More gross food reviews from Shaun, please. He eats so that I don’t have to.

    Reply
  • 5/12/2010 at 2:57 pm
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    At Max Burger in West Hartford they have the “Fatty Melt” which is tomato and bacon between two grilled cheeses. Also, they have bacon and peanut brittle ice cream that has pieces of peanut brittle and bacon in it. (I had the ice cream. Totally awesome.)

    Reply
    • 5/12/2010 at 3:16 pm
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      Update: I was wrong about the Fatty melt. It is two grilled cheeses, one with tomato in it and one with bacon in it, and then there’s an 8oz burger in the middle.

      Reply
      • 5/12/2010 at 3:18 pm
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        The Fatty Melt just got better.

        Reply

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