Robot Claw

Please understand I’m trying these chicken ramens so you don’t have to…

Coles Chicken Flavored Noodles (1650 kJ, 16.6 g fat, 1316 mg sodium)

Without a doubt I prefer cup ramens to bricks these days, so this store brand had a steep hill to climb. And it barely tried: the noodles were weirdly sticky and the ‘taste’ was just herby salt.

I’ve formed a theory that the Australian ‘chicken’ taste is quite different from the US one, since none of those taste anything like the ones I eat in America. To me they taste more of earth and beef and, in this case, something I don’t want to eat: 0/10

Simple Chicken Noodles (1300 kJ, 13.3 g fat, 1100 mg sodium)

At this point – with five antipodean noodles under my belt – I was beginning to despair. I eat a Gefen cup almost every day back home; would nothing down here even attempt to come close to the glory of that pristine taste?

‘Sinple’ is the Aldi store brand, and to cut to the chase, I hated it. Once again I tasted soil and ash and burned toast. Do they even know what chickens are here in Oz???! Score: 1/10

Fantastic Chicken Noodles (1600 kJ, 17.1 g fat, 1890 mg sodium)

This is a larger size of the Fantastic one I tasted last week, which I proclaimed as one of the worst ramen I’d ever tasted and scored it a generous -8/10. I’ll give you one guess how much I enjoyed eating it again.

Let’s put it this way: My ethics and honor mean that I buy every (plain) chicken ramen I ever see and taste them all. Even if I know or even suspect I won’t like one I’ll still give it a go. Last week I bought both Fantastic ramens at the same time, and of course had no idea I’d hate them both. I’ll say now, hand on heart, that if I found this second one after I’d eaten the first I would have pretended I hadn’t seen it and walked away. An easy -10/10

Between these three we have an average score of -3/10, and I despair for Australians that are sold this dreck. And yet I’ve got three more to try so all hope is not yet lost. Stay tuned…

Headed back to Newcastle from Sydney today, and not much else happened, so now is a good time to review the chicken tenders from all four Australian fast food chicken joints!

I’m very pleased to say I have a special guest co-reviewer, who we will call Sue. Together we tried and reviewed the tenders (only) from each place. No sauce, no chicken burgers, no fried chicken: just tenders. No restaurant serves them individually, so we always had to buy a set meal to get tenders, and although we ate the fries we didn’t let them cloud our tender opinions.

So which place makes the best tender? Let’s see…

When we ordered a chicken tender meal from Henny Penny in addition to chips and a drink, the above is what we got. Our first thought was we had been given spicy tenders by mistake so Sue hopped in to exchange them and was told this was the only type they sold. Despite looking incredibly unappetizing we steeled ourselves and gave them a try. Here’s what we thought (all comments were written immediately after we ate them):

Me: Henny Penny should be ashamed to serve this greasy trash to anyone. It was too spicy for me, tasted only of disease, and was so unpleasant I hope the company goes out of business as a result: 0/10
Sue: Tasted like a vat of oil sprinkled with paprika. It’s now coated my mouth and the essence of vulgarity will be with me for the rest of the day. Nothing but phosphoric acid will dissolve this filth: 1/10

Yikes! If anything we over-rated these, since the appalling aftertaste of grease lingered and these were well below the others. Truly tenders from the pits of hell.

Next was Red Rooster which I feel is a chicken joint that most people ignore. Weirdly, even though they were on the menu, the drive-in girl said she couldn’t sell us tenders since they were needed for the chicken burgers! We pressed, she discovered she was wrong and we ended up with the above. Our thoughts:

Me: The tenders looked good, especially the batter, and the crisp upon first bite was encouraging. But all I could taste was grease and the more I chewed the more squirted out. Not a good tender at all: 4/10
Sue: These chicken pieces were moist and tasty even though a little too salty, but the batter was thin and not nearly robust enough to hold in the copious amounts of grease they contained. I ate them all but was covered in grease afterwards. I’ll never eat these again. Once is definitely enough: 1/10

While not as odious as the Henny Penny abominations, these were still more like grease tenders than a satisfying chicken product. With half the chickens tasted, things are looking grim!

Oporto never disappoints with its burgers (single fillet Otropo no Mayo is my standard order) but I’d never tried their chicken tenders. $11 later, and we were served up (with chips and a drink) what you see above.

Me: Absolutely incredible! The chicken was the thinnest and dryest I’ve ever eaten and the very light batter was crispy and delicious with a strong taste of citrus. This was blissful; a perfect tender: 10/10
Sue: I felt like I was going to get cancer from the acrylamide. It was just tasteless: 4/10

An interesting disagreement from the two of us. It’s hard for me to imagine a better tender but for Sue it’s not much better than a Red Rooster greasebomb! I guess she has a thing against those acrylamides?

And last but not least, we tried KFC. When anyone thinks of a chicken joint they probably think of KFC, so you’d expect they’d know what they’re doing. So how were their tenders…

Me: Chicken was a bit too juicy for my taste, but the batter was exceptional and very crispy. I didn’t mind the salt at all. This was a great tender that I’d eat again: 8/10
Sue: This was moist and tender with a crispy and salty better; I enjoyed the first bite but the salty aftertaste was too much: 8/10

Sue’s words read harsher than her thoughts, since there’s no question this was her favourite.

The verdict: Looking at the average scores, KFC is the winner with 8, Oporto is second (7) and the other two are well behind at 2.5 (Red Rooster) and 0.5 (Henny Penny). I conclude that if you’re after Oz chicken tenders head to KFC, unless you’re me in which case you should rush to the local Oporto 🙂