July 5, 2006

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Battle of the Spicy Chicken Sandwiches: Wendy's Vs. Checkers

The world of fast food is a cut-throat business. It's a fry-or-be-fried world of mystery ingredients, bottom dollar menu options, calorie counts on the order of Avogadro's number, and wage slaves who dont give a damn how long you've been waiting, because hell, they don't get paid enough to take on that kind of responsibility.

The most recent salvo in the fast food wars came when Wendy's pulled a North Korea by launching its 99 cent "spicy" chicken sandwich. There are only three other administrations that I know of that posess 99 cent chicken sandwich technology: Checkers, McDonalds, and KFC.

In terms of overall food quality, I think Wendy's is the best all around fast food. In fact, Adam and I used to like it so much that we would go there every day after high school. One time we even made another friend of ours take the "Triple-Triple Challenge," which consisted of said friend eating three triple stacks in one sitting. That's a $12 meal. As I remember, he failed miserably by trying to eat only the meat out of the third sandwich. If you're feeling particularly American sometime, take the Triple-Triple Challenge and get back to us on how that worked out for you.

But I digress: this is not about who is best overall; this is about who can deliver the best chicken sandwich for less than one dollar. As I haven't had the KFC sandwich, this battle is between Wendy's and Checkers only. Once I have the KFC sandwich I will build a bracket and KFC can face off against McDonald's.

The Battle:

The chicken sandwich in the picture is the Wendy's sandwich in question, and as expected, it looks a lot different from the advertized one. It's the patty chicken, not a real breast. If you're not familiar with the "patty" chicken, it's kind of like ground up, boiled chicken parts formed into either a pseudo-breast shape or some geometric figure, like a circle or a square. It has a comparable texture to a giant chicken nugget. Even though it's not a real breast, you can't expect it to be, because this thing costs a dollar. A Checkers 99 cent chicken is the same patty chicken, only with a ton of mayonnaise and shredded lettuce. The main difference between the two sandwiches comes down to three things: mayonnaise, lettuce, and heat.

Like I said, the Checkers sandwich has a ton of mayonnaise mixed with shredded lettuce, while the Wendy's sandwich only has a drop of mayonnaise along with a solid, crunchy piece of nutritionally worthless iceburg lettuce. This is a real toss up depending on how you feel about mayonnaise. The key difference is in heat. The Wendy's sandwich has almost no heat at all, while the Checkers sandwich has been known to have traces of (mild) heat. There is a slight difference in overall quality, and I mean very slight. In this respect the edge goes to Wendy's.

The Verdict:

The winner of this battle is the Wendy's sandwich by a breadcrumb. If you're drunk, the winner is the Checkers sandwich, as all Checkers food is primed for the inebriated consumer. The Wendy's sandwich is wholly dissappointing though, if only because it has so much more to live up to. It's only a dollar, but the fundamental problem with it while you are eating it is that you're really fantasizing about the $3.50 spicy chicken, so it becomes something like real sex vs. masturbation. Yes, that's the best way I can characterize the Wendy's sandwich. If you've never had sex before, you may have no problem with this mockery of the real thing.

Posted by Chris Santoro at July 5, 2006 7:10 PM | EatFoo 1.0 Posts