Well, the people spoke and wanted to see a Chicken Sandwich Showdown rather than Basket Review today, per polls on my Twitter and Instagram pages.
So I thought why not go with two of the classic restaurants for a Classic Chicken Sandwich Showdown — McDonald’s and Burger King. For the record, if McDonald’s had a spicy chicken sandwich I definitely would’ve gone with a spicy sandwich over classic. But, that’s not the case, so the standard will have to do.
I’ll start with Burger King, the sandwich on the right in the photo. A couple years ago, the BK Lounge introduced a new, higher quality chicken sandwich to go alongside their original chicken sandwich and value menu option.
This new chicken sandwich is rather good. It’s a big improvement from the original chicken sandwich, and gave Burger King a menu option it needed to compete with those of its counterparts at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Arby’s, etc.
The chicken patty on the BK sandwich is thin and comfortably crispy. It’s finished with lettuce, tomatoes and mayo, which, in my opinion didn’t really elevate the sandwich much. Pretty much my whole life, I’ve wanted all my sandwiches to be decked out. Lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, jalapenos, whatever. In some scenarios, that’s still the case, but with a fast food crispy chicken sandwich like this, I’ve grown to appreciate simplicity. Let the star of the show sing.
HOWEVER, at my favorite restaurant, Brew Bird, bring it on. Bring it all on. They nail every sandwich they put out, no matter how simple or crazy. I had a buffalo chicken sandwich topped with mac n cheese there a couple weeks ago and it was MONEY.
Anyways, I digress. The BK sandwich was nice.
The McDonald’s buttermilk crispy chicken sandwich wasn’t bad, either. It was built the exact same — chicken patty, lettuce, tomato and mayo on a bun. The piece of chicken itself was about the same size of Burger King’s. The flavor, however, wasn’t up to par with BK’s, which surprised me. You put a title like buttermilk crispy chicken sandwich in front of me and I’m there. The texture and crunch was nice, it just didn’t have as much flavor.
Alright, the moment of truth. For Burger King, I’m going 6.6. Nice sandwich, decent quality, but not to the level of a Chick-fil-A or Popeyes. I’m giving McDonald’s a 6.3. It was close and they were both good sandwiches, but McDonald’s couldn’t quite get enough of that buttermilk chicken flavor to come out.
I, like many of you probably will be, am surprised. Going in, I thought McDonald’s was going to come out on top strictly because of reputation.
Thank you for reading and thank you for those who follow me on social and voted. I’ll do a Basket Review on Friday to wrap up the week. Take care and much love.
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