Robot Claw

Let’s try this mad creation:

Australia loves it’s honeycomb, and there’s several products available that include it. The most well known is probably Violet Crumble bars, but whoever thought of turning them into a drink?!?

I was apprehensive pouring it, since as a rule I don’t like drinking milk unless it’s strawberry flavoured. And let’s be honest: this doesn’t look great:

Fearing coffee or something equally nasty I took a slug. I immediately disliked it, although it tasted nothing like Violet Crumble and instead just tasted of chocolate. Mum was curious and had a glass herself…

Here’s her review: “Tasty but no Violet Crumble taste. It’s just a chocolate milkshake! I wouldn’t buy it again and I’ll score it 4/10.”

As for me, it’s a solid 0/10 since I despise chocolate milk, and I’ll also penalize it a further point (down to -1/10) for having not even a trace of honeycomb taste!

It’s time for the last of the Southern Hemisphere chicken noodle reviews. Did my search of local supermarket shelves reveal a worthy product at last?

Suimin Noodles with Chicken (1440 kJ, 13.7 g fat, 1600 mg sodium)

Aside from my hyperbole and possible exaggeration, one common denominator in my reviews of the Australian chicken noodles is the taste (or lack thereof) descriptions. To my sensitive palate, many of these have tasted nearly identical, and that’s not a good thing.

Suimin joins the club: an earthy and dirty taste coupled with thick sticky noodles. It’s a hearty cup to be true, but not one I’d ever voluntarily eat: 0/10

Fantastic Gluten Free Chicken Noodles (671 kJ, <1 g fat, 856 mg sodium)

I’ll start by acknowledging that this product caters to a specific audience, and should be commended for it’s low fat and sodium. That said, this is another ‘Fantastic’ brand noodle product and the two I’ve already reviewed from them are amongst the worst I’ve ever tasted.

Let’s not flog a dead horse: ‘gluten free’ here essentially means ‘taste free’ which ironically makes this slightly better than the other Fantastic ones which tasted horrible. Still a woeful noodle: 1/10

Yoodles Brown Rice Chicken Noodles (1140 kJ, 3.4 g fat, 1260 mg sodium)

This one screamed ‘hipster’ and I was scared of it. As a result I left it for last, and when I opened it, saw the plastic-looking noodles and the bounteous flavor packets my dread increased. But I had to try it, so I did…

It was easy to prepare, but I chose to omit the ‘fat packet’ since adding oil or grease to these things turns my stomach. So strictly speaking I tried a modified version of the product. And it was fantastic! By a very wide margin this is the best chicken noodle I’ve tried here in Oz! Delicious noodles that resemble spaghetti coupled with a subtle but chickeny taste meant I ate the whole thing even though I wasn’t even hungry. If I lived in Australia, I’d fill my cupboards with these: 8/10

Over the past two years I’ve reviewed a total of 48 plain chicken noodle products. In doing this I’ve tasted good and bad and even found one so great I eat it almost daily! I’m not aware of any other products I’ve yet to try, so maybe – finally – it’s time for this series to go on a hiatus for a while…

Today I went for a big long walk. I saw many things and the weather was beautiful. But you don’t want to hear about my 32k steps or the guy that accidentally burned to death, since something much more important happened today!

My lunch today was a hamburger, small fries and a small frozen coke. A delicious meal, and only $5. I enjoyed it, as I did yesterday, and the day before, and the day before, and the three days before that.

Yes my friends, I ate the exact same lunch seven days in a row! I set myself this challenge after having done it for four days, and it is with no small amount of pride that I can now say I completed it!

Philistines may say this isn’t any sort of an achievement, just the no-talent-required result of handing over $35 to a charming McDonald’s employee. While they are obviously wrong, I’ll concede that my particular achievement is more special than it may at first seem. I didn’t just eat the same lunch for a week, I ate the same lunch every day for a week at seven different McDonald’s!

In order, they were purchased from the Myer Food Court Sydney, George Street Sydney, Kotara, Jilliby, Newcastle, Broadmeadow and Charlestown. I daresay I’m the only person in the world that has completed this challenge.

At first this was easy, but after a while it became a true challenge. By day five I dared to dream I’d be able complete this, but the last two days in particular were a real trial. Now it’s done I’m sure you’ll agree this is a phenomenal achievement, and a true showcase of my strength of will and culinary focus.

While congratulations aren’t necessary, I’ll thank you in advance for sharing you opinions in the comments. As for myself, I felt I needed to do something to acknowledge my victory. I gave it some thought, and in the end felt only one thing was appropriate: a quick stop at Maccas for an apple pie and a frozen coke 🙂

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 🙂