The day I sat down to write this (Feb 12th, 2022), 5 days after eating the burger I'm about to review, it'd vanished from the KFC website. It went on sale on Feb 2nd, and was available 'while stocks last'. So it took just over a week for supplies to run out, and now the burger is no more.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I mean, look at this thing.
The 'drowning in cheese' chicken filet sandwich (burger) from Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan.
(Technically, おぼれる (oboreru) means 'to nearly drown'. I didn't want to dwell on that too long.)
"Boneless KFC chicken and lettuce, covered in 2 types of cheese sauce: a garlicky cheese sauce and a cheddar cheese sauce, for a chicken filet sandwich that lets you enjoy the cheese flavour to your heart's content."
That's not an amazing translation, because that sentence is super long and goes all over the place. And uses the phrase 'cheese sauce' 3 times, which is overkill. But I hope you get the gist. There is a LOT of cheese in this burger.
(There is *meant to be* a LOT of cheese in this burger. I'll get to that in a minute.)
You know your burger's going to be decently filled when it arrives taped shut.
I didn't waste much time opening this up, and I wasn't completely surprised by what I found inside.
I knew it wasn't going to look anything like the promo pics. Nah, that's just silly. That's like thinking people look the same on Instagram as they do in real life... but back to the food.
Yep. Cheese everywhere already.
The folded-over end of the packaging is glued down either side of the bun. What that means, in practice, is that half the melty cheese is stuck in the gap. Pulling the burger out revealed the full extent of the mess.
Okay, so the 2 nitpicky things I want to say about this burger are:
1) The advertising promised a cheddar cheese sauce, and this is clearly just a melted slice or 4 of processed cheese. I know processed cheese does contain some real cheese (what, half?), but it tasted like processed cheese. I dipped a chip in the melted bit to see, and the cheddar flavour was sorely lacking.
2) This burger isn't 'drowning in cheese' any more, because most of the cheese has already escaped. This looks like someone heroically dived in to drag the burger out of the cheese just in time, and then made a half-hearted attempt at CPR.
Those were my complaints. But on taking the first bite... hey, this is actually good.
KFC's chicken can be hit-and-miss sometimes: too dry, all bones and no chicken, all crispy coating and no chicken. This was a nice burger: all chicken meat, decent coating, didn't feel dry or chewy. I can't deny that 2 types of cheese sauce helped out with that, but I was happy with the chicken.
The amount of cheese that stayed in the burger as I was trying to eat it... was satisfactory. Didn't overwhelm the chicken, and so I can't say it was 'drowning'. At least it didn't drip. I've eaten a beef burger that was drowning in way too much cheese sauce, many years ago. That was an absolute mess, and the burger was so slippery I ended up eating it with a fork. This one was restrained in comparison.
I was planning to go back for the double version (double chicken AND double cheese), until I read this morning that it's no longer on sale. I would've loved to review that monster for you.
Verdict: 8/10. Fried chicken and cheese sauce is a finger-lickin' good combo. I hope KFC brings it back.