Fast Food Review: Popeyes Rip'n Chick'n

I'm a big fan of Popeyes and most of the time their promotions sound great. But when I read about this newest one my reaction was more of an Excuse me? than anything else.

"We cut a plump, all white meat chicken breast into strips," the advertisement states. From the picture it was clear that the pieces all remain attached. "We call it Rip'n Chick'n because you just rip and dip it," the ad continues.

I'll be honest: despite spending more time thinking about fast food than anyone ever should, I've never once thought You know what would make chicken strips more fun? If I could rip them apart myself.

Still, it's Popeyes. They have served enough great promotions over the years to earn the benefit of the doubt from me. So I headed to out to give them a try. I ordered the Rip'n Chick'n with fries and a drink for $4.99 plus tax.

I noticed they still had signs for the Firecracker Butterfly Shrimp that I wrote about last month. If you read that post, you may recall that Popeyes did not have the signature element of that promotion - the Firecracker sauce. (And some people who left comments also reported that the Popeyes they went to was not offering the Firecracker sauce.) Now I figured I could finally give it a try.

"Do you have the Firecracker sauce?" I asked the woman at the counter.

"Yes," she replied.

"I would like to buy two of them," I said, and gave her fifty cents.

30 seconds later I was slightly disappointed but not at all surprised when she returned and said to me "We don't have the Firecracker sauce anymore."

After 6 minutes I received my bag and I took it to my car to eat.

There's no other way to put it: it looked weird. Creepy. Somewhat sinister, like the amorphous debris that lurks in aquariums. But it was hot and crispy and smelled good, so I started ripping it apart.

To my surprise, there was a certain amount of simple joy in tearing apart the chicken pieces. I'm not saying I have found the one thing I've been looking for my whole life. I'm not even saying it was the culinary highlight of my day. I'm just saying it was more fun than I ever would have imagined tearing apart fried chicken strips could be.

The chicken was very good, just like Popeyes usually is. It was juicy and meaty; the batter was hot and crispy. (Like Burger King's chicken - only the exact opposite.) Supposedly it is battered with cayenne, habanero, white and black peppers, although the only one of those I could detect was the white.

My one complaint? It has little to do with the promotion, it's about Popeyes sauces.

I mentioned not being able to try the Firecracker sauce (on two occasions). For years Popeyes served "Delta sauce," a spicy sauce containing Creole mustard, relish, chipotle, and several other ingredients I love. They also had a horseradish sauce as good as any I've ever had. They no longer carry either. A little over a week ago I wrote about fast food condiments and I tried the Popeyes Spicy Honey Mustard. I asked for one of those on this trip.

"We don't carry that anymore," the girl told me.

"What do you have?" I asked.

"Ranch or barbecue."

This was disappointing. Popeyes went from having better sauces than any fast food chain - better than most restaurants, too - and now they have a weaker selection than an AMPM condiment stand. This chicken was really good and I would have loved it with one of Popeyes defunct sauces. Instead all I could dip it in was the buttermilk ranch, a completely boring sauce. 

Well, I guess since I carry Trappey's in my car I had one other option, and it was certainly better than the house ranch, but it wasn't great.

This is another good promotion from Popeyes, but I would not say it's great in the tradition of their crawfish, the Red Hot Popcorn Chicken, or the Wicked Chicken. But a very solid offering.