Are you looking for a sucker punch to the gut? Or a salty assault to the taste buds? Or maybe you just have a thing against chickens and their children?
If any of these things describe you, then by all means walk over to the nearest KFC and order yourself the Double Down.
The Double Down is a “sandwich” with two slabs of “chicken” instead of bread with two pieces of bacon and cheese covered in a mayonnaise-based sauce. The sandwich has 540 calories, 32 grams of fat and 1,380 milligrams of sodium. That’s only the original recipe model of course; the grilled version has slightly less calories and fat, but more sodium.
The Double Down does have less calories compared to a Big Mac, and that’s has to stand for something, right?
I wondered the same thing, and at the behest of my fellow reporters, I convinced Pat Lohmann and Ryan Tomari to come along with me on my journey to try out this Frankenstein monster of fast food.
When we arrived at the KFC, a looming sense of awe and revulsion stirred in my mind. The store has a giant cardboard cut-out of the sandwich on display. It’s strange to behold, to see the two pieces of chicken and the cheese oozing out from its crevices. Seeing that it was a real thing was all the more distressing.
The first real surprise about this beast is its cost: five bucks. That’s a subway sandwich, five double cheeseburgers from McDonald’s, or a couple of carne adovada burritos from Frontier. I thought about these other things while shelling out five bucks, and all I was getting was a small chicken sandwich. Great. I hadn’t eaten all day in preparation, and hoped that it would fill me up, and in that sense I wasn’t going to be disappointed.
When the sandwiches finally came, disappointment set in. Seeing the sandwich in real life was anti-climatic and somehow the sandwich was even worse looking than the picture. Instead of the solid brown that KFC advertises for the chicken skin, its skin is paler and resembles that of a chicken nugget. The bacon’s limp and the sauce is all over the place. Furthermore, the entire thing is wrapped in plastic sheath, but the grease leaked through anyway.
For you, dear reader, I soldiered on.
The first bite was messy and bland. The chicken had no flavor, but still had a thick and rubbery texture like the Colonel’s other chicken treats. That alone might be bearable, but the sauce’s saltiness overwhelmed the taste buds, and lingered even after two massive swigs of water. Both of my cohorts agreed the taste was uninspiring. If that’s the entire sandwich, I thought, this would be no problem.
Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy. I noticed with every passing bite I accrued a fine film of grease along my tongue and fingertips. My stomach grew heavier with every swallow. It somehow looked grosser the more it diminished. I think it was the knowledge that the fleshy mass was in my stomach that disturbed me so much.
I finished it, and I breathed a deep sigh of chicken-flavored relief. It was done — but it wasn’t. The thing had somehow come to life in my stomach and was fighting back. The souls of departed chickens were angry and taking it out on me, which I felt was unfair, but I dealt with it. My companions met a similar fate. Pat explained that he felt, “no good,” and then doubled over clenching his stomach. Ryan, being a little bit of a wuss, took only two bites of his chicken disaster before calling it quits.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in relative uncomfortableness. We didn’t move. I could have sworn I was sweating chicken. Pat aptly renamed the sandwich from the Double Down to the Double Over due to the fact that we were doubled over for the rest of the afternoon.
Earlier, I had mentioned that I went in with an empty stomach hoping to be filled. If one positive thing can be said of the sandwich, is that it does fill you up, but I would suggest going hungry. When you eat a Double Down because you’re hungry, you make a deal with the devil. He’ll get rid of your hunger, but he will mark you.
No joke. I felt the sandwich in my stomach for four hours afterwards. If you respect your stomach at all, you will avoid this beast. On the other hand, if you have a steel lining along your intestines and insane hatred for health, then rush on over to your nearest KFC.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
