Fast Food Review: Wendy's Asiago Ranch Chicken Club

I usually enjoy Wendy's promotions. They're never anything too ambitious - just the addition of bacon or some kind of new sauce to whatever items they already serve - but I've always been a fan of their chicken sandwiches and nuggets.

So when I heard Wendy's was making a chicken sandwich with Asiago cheese, I wanted to try it immediately. Asiago has long been one of my favorite cheeses, a sweet, slightly nutty, smoother version of Parmesan. There is no cheese I more enjoy eating with red wine. Other than Kraft Easy Cheese, obviously.

I headed down to the Wendy's closest to me. That's always an adventure. 19 times out of 20 I won't go through any drive-through, but I always do at this Wendy's (every time I've gone inside, the same crazy old lady has been there and she creeps me out). It took about five minutes for the car ahead of me to order; he had to repeat his order several times. It took slightly less time for me, but I had to repeat the order even more than he did. The woman on the loudspeaker was not being coherent; at one point I believe she asked me if I wanted to go fishing with her. But I could be wrong about that.

I received my sandwich and pulled over in the parking lot to eat it. The sandwich looked very good when I unwrapped it. But it looked better than it tasted - it was very dry. It wasn't bad, the bacon was crispy and high quality, and the chicken was as hot as any fast food sandwich I have ever had. But the flavor of the Asiago was nonexistent in each bite. I even tore off a small piece of the cheese and ate it by itself, trying to detect any of the traditional tastes of Asiago. I could not.

There was a ranch sauce on the sandwich that added nothing. I don't know why Wendy's decided to go with this condiment: they added a fancy cheese (well, supposedly they did; this could have been American cheese for all I could tell) and quality bacon... couldn't they have come up with a better sauce than ranch?

And one other thing to note - you can order the sandwich grilled, homestyle or spicy. I requested it spicy. I'm pretty sure they gave me homestyle. It's not that big of a deal - at this particular Wendy's, I don't believe they have ever once gotten an order correct the first time; I'm just glad there wasn't a razor blade in the sandwich or anything like that- but I think the spicier version would definitely be superior. Hopefully it would add a layer of flavor to the sandwich that this one lacked.

So, will I ever get it again? No. I would rather just buy some nice Asiago at the store and get a 99 cent chicken sandwich to throw it on. (This sandwich was almost five bucks, which seems way too high.) But, I will say this: if there is a Wendy's near you that you trust, that you know will get your order correct and possibly use a higher quality cheese than this, then you could do a lot worse than this sandwich.