WORLDWIDE CHICKEN BURGER APPRECIATION SOCIETY
Posts Tagged: Fried
Get Your Fat Ass Into This
You love chicken burgers.
We love chicken burgers.
Let’s all go out and eat chicken burgers together… wearing this.
On sale now for use $129 USD.
Cook & Archies
Purveyor: Cook & Archies, Surry Hills, NSW Australia
Menu Item: Southern Fried Chicken Burger
Price: $19 AUD
Believe it or not, the pineapple actually works.
Squawk: There’s a lot to love about this burger and Chef gets bonus points for being ballsy enough to put a pineapple slice on it and have it work. To most of us here at Holy-Cluck pineapple seems like the sort of thing you should just pull out before your first bite (and it was hard for us not to), but when combined with the crunchy chicken and tartness of the fermented cabbage and green apple slaw, it all comes together in a truly original – and delicious – way. The combos including the smoky mayo and jalapeños are perfectly balanced, high quality and unexpected, providing a good mix of textures and flavours without any off-putting mouth feel. Good sweet potato chips too, although the portion was small.
Buaawk: Somebody’s never been to “The South” coz this ain’t even close to how they do fried chicken down there. While we enjoyed the thin, crunchy pieces, any connoisseur would agree the sandwich doesn’t deliver what the menu promises. All of us felt the burger was too small in both diameter and height for $19 and some of us felt that despite all the interesting and well paired ingredients, it was a bit dry and the bread roll too thick in relation to what was inside it.
Orto Trading Co.
Purveyor: Orto Trading Co, Surry Hills, NSW Australia
Menu Item: Southern Fried Chicken Benni
Price: $18 AUD
Squawk: The brioche (They call it an English Muffin, but it’s not even close) is one of the best around and the sweetness is just right with the butter and Hollandaise. Egg is just right – oozing the needed yolky moisture to make the semi-dry chicken go down smoothly. We love the venue and the friendly staff. We heard it was sold recently so went back to see what the new Owner was up to. Turns out, they kept all the things we loved about the place – and added a few new delicious non-chicken items to menu as well, The “Orto Brekky” is a fave. We highly recommend the place overall, but if you’re heading out for a high-ranking chicken burger, keep walking, the exception to this being, if you’re supremely hungover. In that case, one of these and one of their perfect coffees, just might get you through the morning.
Buaawk: This should be knock your socks off delicious. Sadly all socks stay on. (Maybe that’s a good thing.) Point is this could be something special with a little more love, attention to detail and creativity. Our biggest issue is with the chicken itself, too much oily crust, and the three times we’ve tried, it always seems like it sat in the fryer for just a bit too long. And a side of something potato-ey would go a long way.
THE LORD WOLSELEY HOTEL
Bonus Overhead Shot
Purveyor: The Lord Wolseley Hotel Pyrmont NSW, Australia
Menu Item: Fried Chicken Schnitzel Burger
Price: $17 AUD
Squawk: This quaint pub is well off the beaten path and when you’re not super easy to get to, you need to give people a reason to make the extra effort and the Lord Wolseley’s “Pub Life Kitchen” does. They attract people from far and wide with their now infamous “burger experiments” that appear on the menu most Wednesdays. These experiments get a lot of people talking which is how we heard about their Doritos encrusted chicken burger. Yep you read that right. Doritos. There was a bit of panic when we got there (on a Friday) because we didn’t see it on the menu, but a quick chat with the friendly Barmaid revealed that not only was this mystical burger real, it was available. You can imagine our relief.
So how was it? The meat was a nice combo of breast and thigh – very juicy surrounded with a very, very fried, very very crunchy crust of Doritos crumbs. All this frying and crumbing gives this chicken burger an extremely high crunch factor. In fact, it just might be the highest recorded crunch factor in a chicken burger to date. We felt the burger would have been improved with a little slaw, but the large pickle slices were more than adequate and added nice flavour, crunch (more!) and kept things soft. We also appreciated the fact that the American cheese slice was actually melted. This is a very nice, and often overlooked, touch that can bring any burger up a point. And finally, great chips – nice and salty with the skin on, and not greasy or gross.
Buaawk: It’s hard to fault this one, but we wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t find at least one or two was to make it a perfect ten. Hot sauce is very important to the Holy-Cluck Reviewer Team and for this crunchy burger, Sriracha is the wrong choice. A vinegar based sauce like Franks or Texas Pete could have pushed this one over the edge. The pickles were great, but we’d love to see a couple more on there. The mayo was oddly sweet and was a major detractor overall. The burger is already sweet with the Doritos crust – after all what are Doritos but corn, salt and sugar? Finally, the batter was fried almost to blackness. We’re guessing this is a necessary consequence of making a Doritos encrusted chicken breast in the first place, and we can forgive it, but still, if they could get it to a nice golden brown, they’d be winning.
Bonus Points: For innovation and crunch factor.
– HC
