Popeyes
I am reminded of an occasion recently when I was forced to use a telephone help line.
I find them particularly infuriating, in that grind the teeth, smash the plates kind of way. It generally doesn’t go so well when you keep someone on hold for an hour when promising that it will only be another 2 minutes before the issue is fixed. Neither are professions that you understand how I feel. That comes across as meaningless words as I pointed out if they did understand, they would stop talking for a second! In the end, I decided that life was too short, so I hung up.
This perhaps reflects an ongoing theme of people continuously ignoring me. In all fairness, usually that is warranted.
So one day, when I was feeling that I needed a bit of a pick me up, I decided to try for perfect fried chicken, not having learnt the lessons of other disappointments. I had heard again and again how Popeyes was something really very special. To specifically quote what others have said they were “epic”, “unique” and perhaps the best adjective of all “nice”. I was suitably warned.
Louisian chicken classic. The exterior was fairly hard, the interior dry but most of all, it tasted as if half the ocean had been poured on it and the chicken was left to brine for days. It was so salty that I couldn’t finish it, even with my pint glass of water next to me.
Louisiana chicken spicy. Although I would have thought that things couldn’t get saltier than that, I was wrong. To add to the extreme saltiness of this dish was some weird sweet chilli sauce. Sticky, sweet and salty didn’t go together that well.
Cajun gravy. Salt and slurry. Should not have come as a surprise based on what had already been eaten that it was, salty!
Popeyes original biscuit. Surprisingly rather good in a floury way. Although it may have been good, just because it was missing a too generous portion of salt.
Regular fries. Points have to be awarded for descriptive accuracy here. There were regular. So very regular. So much so that I would avoid these but on second thought, if it the choice was between the chicken and the fries, I would have preferred to end up with the potato. That might leave some saliva in my mouth.
Perhaps I should be thankful to Popeyes as they have taught me two things. 1. that they are another thing to add to the things that annoy me and 2. I’ve found a new way to have a dry mouth rather than talking at someone incessantly. Just have some Popeyes.
A quiet eating 3/10.
Dinner was GBP13 excluding drinks and service.
Lower Food Court, Westfield Stratford City
London E20 1EH