chicken – Page 22 – Michael Eats

Overpriced Thai Food at Kiin

Published on May 29, 2018May 29, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 326 Adelaide Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.kiintoronto.com/

Kiin is the latest Thai restaurant in the burgeoning restaurant empire of Jeff and Nuit Regular (they also own Sukhothai, Pai, and Sabai Sabai). It’s one of those places where you order a few things and share, which is nice because you get to try more stuff (though you inevitably end up spending more, which is a bigger issue than usual at Kiin).

The first thing we tried was the pandan chicken, which features tender pieces of chicken that have been wrapped in a pandan leaf (you can eat those leaves, though they recommend that you remove them). It comes with a bowl of sweet chili sauce for dipping. It’s a tasty dish, but definitely not a home run — the chicken, though nice and tender, was quite plain, and the chili sauce was standard-issue and nothing to write home about.

Next up was the pork jowl, which was a definite upgrade over the chicken. It’s crammed with classic Southeast Asian flavours: it’s a little fishy and a little sweet, with a nice punch of sourness to round it out. But it’s too assertive, and the balance of flavours is off. It’s tasty, but the slices of pork (which are slightly tougher than they should be) are completely wiped out.

The final dish was kua hang gai, which was a braised chicken stir fry. No complaints here — the chicken was super tender, and the flavours were well-rounded and satisfying. We got this with one order of jasmine rice and another of roti. The deep-fried roti was crispy and tasty, but it was closer to fry bread than standard roti. I liked it, but a more traditional preparation would have been preferable.

I mentioned that price was an issue. The pandan chicken was $15, the jowl was $17, the stir fry was $26, the rice was $5, and roti was $6. With tax and tip, it was approaching a hundred bucks, which is just way too much money for the calibre of food that we were served. Not that any of the dishes were bad, but those are fine-dining prices, and the food wasn’t at that level.

Amazing Fried Chicken at Chica’s Chicken

Published on May 22, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2853 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.facebook.com/chicaschicken/

Recently, I had the Nashville hot chicken sandwich from Porchetta and Co. and was thoroughly unimpressed; it was bland, disappointingly mild, and dripping with flavourless grease. It was a surprisingly mediocre sandwich from an otherwise great restaurant.

Clearly, the problem was not with the dish itself, because I just had the version from Chica’s Chicken, and hot damn it was so good.

The menu here is exceptionally simple; it’s pretty much just bone-in chicken, chicken wings, and a chicken sandwich, along with a variety of sides. I got the quarter chicken (dark, of course) with a side of coleslaw.

There are three heat options: mild, medium, and hot AF. I ordered hot, which prompted the woman behind the counter to warn me that it was indeed very hot. She mentioned Carolina Reaper peppers (currently the hottest pepper in the world) along with another pepper I can’t recall.

It’s so good. The chicken is perfectly cooked, with an amazingly satisfying level of crispiness on its skin and abundantly juicy chicken. And the flavour is explosive; aside from the level of heat, their spice blend is outstanding. It’s some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever had.

As for the heat: it’s hot enough to make you sweat and to clear your sinuses, but not so spicy that it feels like something you should be eating on a dare. It’s great.

It comes on a plain slice of bread (de rigueur for this style of chicken), which soaks up all of the amazing grease. It also comes with a side of ranch for dipping, which was a huge upgrade over the typical Hidden Valley; it was creamy, slightly garlicky, and a little bit sweet. It was a delicious compliment to the intensely spicy chicken.

The creamy coleslaw was great, too; I normally prefer vinegary coleslaw, but versions like this make me second guess myself.

Chicken Strips at the Burger’s Priest

Published on May 3, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1599 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.theburgerspriest.com/

I love Buffalo sauce. I know there are some people who find it too vinegary, and I totally get that, but me? If you toss something in Buffalo sauce, I’m going to eat it. It doesn’t matter what it is.

The Burger’s Priest recently introduced chicken strips to their menu; you can get them plain or tossed. Obviously I went with tossed.

They’re quite good. The exterior has a good amount of crunch, and the chicken inside is nice and tender.

And I don’t need to tell you that good-quality fried chicken is delicious when you toss it in Buffalo sauce. That just goes without saying.

It comes with a side of ranch, as well as your choice between BBQ sauce and something called G14. I got the G14, and man, whatever that was, it was crazy delicious. It was tangy, a little bit spicy, and seriously addictive. Easily one of the best dipping sauces I’ve had in a while.

I should note that there are some consistency issues. Two of my chicken strips were as described: crispy, tender, delicious. The third was somehow simultaneously overcooked and undercooked. The chicken was completely dry, and yet the batter was doughy and underdone in parts. You can kind of see what I’m talking about with the batter in the picture below.

With all of the Buffalo sauce and the dipping sauce it wasn’t a huge issue, but it was an issue nonetheless.

Decent meat pies from Nadege

Published on March 31, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Address: 3401 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.nadege-patisserie.com/

I just got a couple of meat pies from Nadege in Yorkdale — beef bourguignon and chicken basquaise — and they were both fine. they were so middle-of-the-road that I’m having a hard time mustering up the enthusiasm to even write a few words about them, but this is a food blog. It was food. Let’s do this.

They both had the same puff pastry crust, which was light and flaky, if a bit dry. Like everything else about these things, it was fine.

They heated them up for me, but clearly not enough, because they were vaguely hot in some places, and lukewarm in others.

The beef bourguignon had big, tender cubes of beef interspersed with carrot chunks. It wasn’t bad, but nothing about it particularly stood out. There just wasn’t much going on, flavour-wise, and the sauce was nonexistent — it was just dry chunks of beef and carrots.

The chicken basquaise had big chunks of chicken interspersed with pieces of peppers (red and yellow peppers, I think? I ate this just a couple of hours ago and it has already almost completely faded from my memory). Like the other pie, it was a bit bland. It was also entirely sauce-less, and the chunks of chicken were kinda dry. But it was fine.

I know I’ve said “fine” an awful lot, but it’s really the best word to describe these things. By tomorrow they will have both entirely receded from my memory, like they never existed.

Waffle Double Down at KFC

Published on March 28, 2018April 12, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

As ridiculous as the Waffle Double Down looks (and yeah, it is ridiculous), it’s basically just an oddball presentation of chicken and waffles. And everybody loves chicken and waffles. So it follows that this thing must be pretty good too, right?

Right?

Well… it’s not awful, I’ll give it that.

The Waffle Double Down is actually pretty simple: it’s two fried chicken patties encasing a Belgian waffle with maple aioli.

I sort of figured that the aioli would be subtly sweet, but I think it might actually be sweeter than just plain maple syrup. As soon as I unwrapped the sandwich (assuming that this thing even qualifies as a sandwich, which is questionable), the maple aroma hit me in the face like a ton of bricks.

And that was one of the main issues: the sandwich is way, way too sweet. I like the combo of sweet and salty, and I quite like chicken and waffles, but this is leaning way too hard in the direction of in-your-face sweetness. It’s almost dessert.

The other issue is the chicken itself. You can get it regular or spicy; I went with spicy, because if someone asks you if you want something spicy, the correct answer is always yes. And it’s not bad — the exterior was crispy and tasty, with a decent kick. But the chicken was overcooked and dry, and since there’s so much of it, that’s an issue. I had to constantly chug water between bites just to keep my mouth from completely drying out.

The waffle was exactly what you’d think it would be. If you’ve ever had prepackaged Belgian waffles, then you know what you’re getting. It’s fine.

I actually wish that they’d drop the gimmick and just make this a regular waffle sandwich. Because as it is, there’s an absurd amount dry chicken and not enough waffle. The proportion is off. It doesn’t taste right.

Oh, and this thing cost about $10.50 with tax, which is crazypants. It is absolutely not worth that much money.