The Times Magazine 61people they disenfranchised and impoverished,
but look at what the theft has brought to white
communities in terms of obesity, sloth, waste,
high street degradation, dismal culinary
monoculture, low pay, animal welfare atrocities...
Isn’t fried chicken, in a weird way, a form of
race revenge? The thrusting young economies
of West Africa now must surely look at a KFC
bargain bucket and high-five themselves that
their ancestors had the forethought, all those
years ago, to provide the means by which white
culture would one day poison itself to death.
Still, my kids love fried chicken and eat it
all the time. Or at least Sam does. He is right
in its slot: male, hefty, impulsive, the servant
of his appetites, he’ll do 12 or 15 pieces of
deep-fried boneless thigh meat when Esther
fries up (no sides, no sauces, no greens), and
is almost equally happy with the twice-fried
Korean-style chicken (KFC) at Kkini on
Fortess Road NW5, or the standard, well-
sourced, brined and buttermilked options
you get on most decent pub menus round our
way. He’s never had actual KFC, but would
no doubt do a 20-piece bucket, on his own,
in under an hour, just like his dad used to.
Kitty, on the other hand, is wiry, bookish,
thoughtful, not a natural fried chicken
consumer. But she was curious to join us
because she’d seen Popeyes on TikTok. She
knows that its new chicken sandwich “broke
the internet” stateside when it was launched
in 2019 and that the UK opening in November
generated massive queues, fights, shortages,
tears, all the usual tantara.
We found it easily, marching from the
station and through the doors in a couple
of minutes and straight into a long queue that
cleared quickly, being nowhere near as long as
the space they had cordoned out in expectant,
empty columns. When I got to the front of the
queue (the kids having gone shoplifting at the
Lego store), a young woman who spoke very
fast and called me “bro” a lot (which was nice)
explained about the various sandwiches and
signature boxes and what “tenders” were, as
opposed to pieces (I’m still not sure), and I got
the kids a couple of three-piece meals (trying
and failing to specify thigh meat) with fries
and fizzy drinks, and for myself a sandwich,
“spicy” but not “deluxe”.
“The only difference with the deluxe is
that it has lettuce and tomato in,” the young
woman said dismissively. She didn’t look like
a salad person.
As I paid (£25 for the three of us), I leant
in and said, “You obviously eat a lot of this
stuff. Is it better than KFC, honestly?”
She hesitated, looked left, then right, then
left again, and said, “Bro, it’s fine.”
She gave me a ticket and I waited maybe
20 minutes for my number to be called, which
meant that by the time I was hefting my giant
bag of dubiously farmed, deep-fried fowl
portions towards the communal eating space
that Popeyes shares with such fashionable
stalwarts of the east London dining scene as
Chopstix, Subway, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut
Express (can you get a Veneziana with a cheese-
filled crust there, I wonder?), Sam and Kitty
were being escorted towards me by a spotty
guy in a Lego hat asking, “Are these yours?”
So let me tell you: the chicken sandwich, by
the standards of the genre, is extremely good.The batter is unexpectedly light and crisp and
clings impressively to the meat. It doesn’t fall
away in patches, nor does it reveal, between
itself and the flesh, that film of spumy
ejaculate familiar to patrons of the goateed
Colonel. The cayenne-spiked mayo is really
good, the delicate slices of not-too-far-gone
cucumber are tart and crunchy and the whole
mouthful coalesces into something more
intriguing than the sum of its parts. But
I don’t like brioche buns and there’s only
so much chicken breast I can eat. Here it
is admirably robust and flavourful, but it
is still a vast cliff face of white meat. I got
halfway, sighed, pulled a long slug of Diet
Coke, and retired.
“How’s the food?” I asked the kids.
“Great,” said Sam. “Best chips ever!” So
I tried some and, yes, they had a dusting of
something more interesting than salt (Cajun
seasoning, apparently) and delivered far more
of interest than any chain-store fry I’ve ever
had. Although they weren’t hot enough.
“And the chicken?”
“Great!”
“As good as Kkini?”
“No way!”
“As good as Mum’s?”
“Dad! Don’t even say that. Mum’s is the
best in the world!”
Good answer. The whole basis of the fried
chicken shop is that it should be better than
you’ve ever had, apart from your mum’s. But
Esther is my wife, not my mum, so I can say
honestly that I don’t think hers is as good as
this, from a technical point of view. I took one
of Kitty’s thigh pieces (she flagged halfway
through her second piece and two thirds of
the way into her Cajun fries – Sam pushed
manfully through to the bottom of both) and
found it fantastic in every way. Apart from
the butthole bird itself, which is where Esther’s
organic, free-range, named farm efforts have
the advantage.
So, in short, this was the worst fried
chicken my kids have ever had, but still great.
And by no means the worst fried chicken I’ve
ever had, because I have been to KFC. If this
kind of thing is going to be all that’s left of
our restaurant culture then, like Winston
Smith with Big Brother, I guess we are going
to have to learn to love it.
As we headed back towards the train
I suddenly remembered part two of the plan,
Wendy’s, and offered my little troopers a
swift, square burger by way of dessert.
“Maybe next time,” said Sam, with a
loud belch.
“Maybe never,” said Kitty, cuffing Sam’s
ear with disgust. nPopeyes Louisiana
Kitchen
Westfield Stratford
City, London E20
(popeyesuk.com)
Sam’s score 7. 5
Kitty’s score 3.25
Dad’s score 7
Score 5.92