Tag: gravy

Gravy Lovers Sandwich at KFC

Published on by Michael Nusair2 Comments

Gravy Lovers Sandwich at KFC
Location: 1610 The Queensway, Toronto
Website: https://www.kfc.ca/

KFC just came out with a sandwich called the Gravy Lovers Sandwich, and yes.  Of course.  Of course I’m going to try that sandwich.  I’m sold just based on the name alone.

The Gravy Lovers Sandwich, as per the KFC website: “features our delicious hand breaded chicken filet, 1 slice of Monterey Jack cheese, creamy mayo and 1 crunchy indented hashbrown with an individual gravy.”

Here’s the problem with ordering anything from a big fast food chain: it’s a crapshoot.  Sometimes you get food that’s nice and fresh, and sometimes you get food that’s… not.  I very much got the latter.

Gravy Lovers Sandwich at KFC

It’s a decent enough sandwich in theory, I’ll give it that.  How could it not be?  Fried chicken + gravy is always going to be a good thing.

It comes with a surprisingly large container of gravy (which is standard KFC gravy — thick and generically salty, but tasty enough), and you’re supposed to take off the top bun and pour it onto the sandwich.  I poured out about a quarter of it, and used the rest as a dip between bites.

Gravy Lovers Sandwich at KFC

The biggest problem here (aside from the fact that they forgot about the slice of cheese, and I guess decided to give me lettuce instead) is that both the chicken and the hashbrown had clearly been sitting in one of those warming trays for hours.  Days?  Weeks??  The meat had a texture that I will charitably describe as leathery, and the hashbrown (which you expect to be crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside) was crunchy and dry throughout.

The copious serving of gravy actually helped quite a bit in this regard, because the sandwich otherwise would have been inedibly dry.  I finished it, and I don’t think that would have been the case if not for the added moisture from the gravy.

Also: the sandwich (on its own — no combo!) costs $11.50 before tax.  Maybe I just don’t eat enough fast food these days, but I’ll admit that this gave me sticker shock.  For around the same price, you can go to a local joint like Chica’s or PG Clucks and get a sandwich that’s roughly a trillion times better.

Mediocre Fried Chicken and Poutine at Rudy

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RudyLocation: 619 College Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.rudyresto.com/

I love Rudy.  I’m on record calling their burger the best in the city.  So it pains me to say this, but the meal I just had there was not great.

To be fair, I didn’t have a burger; going to a burger joint and not ordering the burger is probably not the smartest thing in the world.

Instead, I got the fried chicken sandwich and the poutine.  Neither was particularly great.

Rudy

The chicken sandwich is dubbed the Valentino: “Fried Chicken Sandwich, Coleslaw, Valentino Sauce, Mild Hot Sauce.”  I’ve had this before and found it to be quite tasty, so maybe they were just having an off day?

The biggest issue is the chicken itself; it was dry, overcooked, and incredibly salty.

The first few bites were outright bad, but then I noticed that the two sauces were actually in little plastic containers on the side rather than on the sandwich.  I’m not sure why they did it that way (I certainly didn’t ask for that), but once I applied them both to the chicken, things improved considerably.  The tasty ranch / hot sauce combo helped to smooth over a lot of the chicken’s faults.

Rudy

As for the soft squishy bun that works so well on the burger — sadly, it has a hard time holding up to the more substantial chicken sandwich.

I also tried the poutine, which Toronto Life recently called the best in the city.  It was fine?  I guess?  The gravy was overabundant and bland, the curds were stale (no squeak to be found), and the whole thing wasn’t hot enough to even vaguely melt the cheese.  It certainly wasn’t unpleasant to eat, but it’s a far cry from the best in the city.

I should note that someone else got the burger and said it was as delicious as ever, so unsurprisingly, the burger is the thing to order at the burger joint.  Who would have guessed!

Gross Meatballs and Tasty Dessert at Ikea

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IkeaLocation: 1475 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.ikea.com/

Hot tip: Ikea serves chicken meatballs now, and you should absolutely, positively never order them.  You’re welcome.

They’re actually quite similar to the standard beef meatballs, which are junk — but tasty junk.  I wouldn’t want to eat them on a regular basis, but they’re not bad for what they are.

The chicken meatballs, on the other hand, are not tasty junk.  The flavour is basically fine; they taste a lot like the beef meatballs, but saltier and with a vague chicken-like flavour.

But the texture is horrific.  Remember those rubber Super Balls that would bounce and bounce and bounce?  I’m pretty sure these meatballs have most of the same properties.  They were so rubbery and horrible that I couldn’t even cut through them with a fork.

Ikea

On the plus side, I also had a slice of the chocolate caramel cake, and it’s surprisingly great.  It’s certainly not gourmet — it actually reminds me a lot of the brownies they used to serve in my high school’s cafeteria, but with the addition of caramel — but it’s rich and sweet and satisfying.  I think the next time I find myself in Ikea, I might just skip straight to the dessert.

Cheesy Fried Goodness at the Cracker Barrel in Buffalo

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Location: 6643 Transit Road, Buffalo, NY
Website: https://www.crackerbarrel.com/

When I was a kid, my family and I used to go to Florida every summer.  We’d always drive there, and a stop at the Cracker Barrel was a must.  It’s not exactly gourmet, but if you’re craving greasy southern comfort food, it nicely fits the bill.

Their current special is something called Southern Bowls; I went with the Sausage, Grits Cakes n’ Green Tomato Gravy Bowl, which I couldn’t resist.  I mean, read this description from their menu and tell me you don’t immediately want to eat it:

Enjoy a fresh take on Southern flavors with two deep-fried stone ground pimento cheese grits cakes and our Sweet Pepper n’ Red Skin Hash topped with sausage patties, two scrambled eggs, and shredded Colby cheese all smothered in our green tomato gravy with a sprinkling of fresh parsley.

Yeah.

Cracker Barrel

And it’s pretty much exactly what you’d think it would be from that description.  None of the individual components stand out as being particularly great, but they all kind of meld together into one cheesy, creamy, delicious mess.  In particular, the zingy green tomato gravy does a great job of adding a pop of vibrant flavour, and cutting through the richness of the eggs and the cheese and the grits.

Eggs Benedict (?) at Smash Kitchen

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Smash KitchenLocation: 4261 Highway 7, Unionville
Website: http://www.smashkitchen.com/

Is eggs benedict still eggs benedict if you don’t include the hollandaise sauce?  Traditionally, that dish consists of an english muffin topped with meat (usually ham or bacon), a poached egg, and hollandaise.

That’s four things; the hollandaise is 25 percent of the dish.   How far can you change something until it’s no longer that thing?  Is it still spaghetti and meatballs if you replace the tomato sauce with alfredo?  Probably not!

Which is to say that I just ordered the Smash Benedict from Smash Kitchen, and they replaced the hollandaise with gravy.  To be fair, they also have a traditional eggs benedict on the menu, so that does kinda give them license to mess around with it in their other offerings.

The problem is, I missed the hollandaise.  This particular benedict featured an english muffin topped with pulled pork, cheese, the standard poached egg, and the aforementioned gravy.  The pulled pork was tossed in a very vinegary barbecue sauce that, while tasty, absolutely dominated the dish.

A heaping serving of creamy hollandaise might have helped to cut the vinegary sharpness of the pork, but the gravy was completely lost.  It may as well have not even been there.  I had to eat most of this with some hash browns to help mellow out that strong barbecue sauce flavour.

Still, it certainly wasn’t bad, and the crispy fried hash browns were a very tasty accompaniment.  But if I came back, I’d probably just stick with the classic benedict (there was also a crab cake benedict that looked tasty, and yes — that one had hollandaise on it).