Drew v. Food VIII: Chicken Sandwich War after action report

Welcome one and all to the Chicken Sandwich Tier list! While none of these have been reviewed before on Drew vs. Food, some of them are being written from experiences gained from several plans to write reviews that didn’t end up getting past a draft.

We’ll be revealing the tiers from worst to first, so hopefully I don’t get to your favorite too quickly.

Now I am just one man versesing food, so there’s no helping natural variance or happening to run into a good/bad example of any given chain restaurant. There will also be some excluded simply for not existing in my neck of the woods.

In some cases, a restaurant will have multiple chicken sandwiches. Unfortunately, I was not able to be comprehensive in these cases, but you see a few of them mentioned in passing and some others managed separate entries. There were some more sandwiches I wished to include, but couldn’t squeeze in for my self-imposed deadline of this year lest this fall into unfinished business.

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D-Tier

McDonalds’ Deluxe Crispy Chicken Sandwich

The sandwich, like its restaurant, is pretty ordinary. Not terrible, but overall just blah. The chicken is wholly unnoteworthy, the shredded lettuce is just there, the mayo was good. The tomatoes were missing from my test sample, so I will just assume they were bad to balance out the mayo.

Overall, McDonalds chooses to keep things as simple and straightforward as possible with this offering, and as such it’s hard to recommend over more interesting entrants. If anything, it’s a good example of the whole being less than the sum of its parts.

Burger King’s Italian Royal Crispy Chicken

The BK Chik’n would have been on the list, but it was suddenly discontinued and replaced with the Royal Crispy Chicken line.

I was disappointed by this one. It’s effectively a chicken parm sandwich, with marinara on both buns and a slice of parmesan cheese on top of the chicken. But the problem was, the cheese and sauce on mine were straight out of the fridge. The cheese didn’t really taste like anything and the sauce was pretty lifeless as well. The chicken was plenty warm from being cooked and all, at least. But what this needed to be its best was to heat up everything.

Jack in the Box Cluck Sandwich

Jack has done pretty much the bare minimum here, and it feels like the bare minimum. For that matter, it tastes like the bare minimum.

It’s good enough for a dictionary description of a chicken sandwich, but it hits the same problem McDonald’s did by playing things too straight and too lazily.

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C-Tier

Sonic’s Crispy Chicken Sandwich

This entry has a couple of solid things going for it. It has a toasted bun, which is always a big plus on a sandwich involving sauce. The chicken itself has a very satisfying crunch to it, though it’s a bit flat and thin compared to the competition.

The lettuce was just kind of there, as usual, and the tomatoes weren’t anywhere near just-sliced fresh, but retained some firmness. When you think of a merely average chicken sandwich, this would be at least a slightly more pleasant image than McDonalds.

Church’s Chicken Sandwich

The lowest-ranked actual chicken restaurant lies here.

The chicken patty was a little on the thin side compared to its fellow chicken restaurants. It was as good or better as any non chicken resturaunt’s chicken, but below expectations none the less.

The bread seemed sturdy, but had great cleavage. As in the geology term; it’s very easily torn. And with a generous dollop of mayo involved, you can easily start dripping it onto your lap.

There are a few things going for it that should bump it up a rank for those who like them (which wasn’t me), First, Church’s is one of the few staunch believers in pickles being present all the way through, not just for a couple of bites in the middle. Second, the spicy version comes with a jalapeno just to drive the point home.

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B-Tier

Jack in the Box Jack’s Spicy Chicken

While the Cluck sandwich was rather pedestrian, Jack came to play with their Spicy sando. This one jumps all the way up to B for those who like it hot.

In addition to bringing the best heat outside of the chicken wing restaurants, it performed the miracle of keeping that spiciness in the mouth, where it belongs. No stomach rumbling or flaming trips to the bathroom the next day. If that’s an integral part of your spicy food experience, please don’t tell me. Nobody wants to know.

The cheese variant isn’t bad, but the cheese doesn’t really add to the high points of this sandwich.

Hardee’s Hand-Breaded Chicken Sandwich

This one surprised me with how much it had going for it. Warm, juicy chicken, pleasantly crunchy breading and a properly toasted and solid bun.

The drawbacks, though, is that there’s not really any taste to the breading and the anemic amount of plain mayo doesn’t do anything to make up for it. The whole sandwich is left without a lot of flavor to it.

Still, if I’m ever getting a chicken sandwich but not from a chicken place solely for the chicken, this is the pick.

Raising Cane’s Sandwich Combo

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice-tasting meal, but the fact that it’s three chicken fingers in a bun rather than a sandwich-size piece of chicken makes me a bit leery of including this. It’s the chicken sandwich equivalent of three kids in a trenchcoat pretending to be an adult.

This sandwich uses a very wide bun to accommodate the extra space the fingers take up, resting on a large leaf of lettuce that has been slathered on both sides with the always tasty Cane’s sauce. The lettuce doesn’t really add anything other than looks to the ensemble, and you might be left wondering if you’d have an as-good or even better experience by ordering the three finger meal and asking for an extra slice of Texas toast to make your own “sandwich.”

Wendy’s Italian Mozzarella Chicken

In our Discord, TheMonsterMemeKing was over the moon over this sandwich, and it’s easy to see why. Take notes, Burger King.

This marinara sauce announced its presence with authority. And there is no missing the cheese, either, when the second patty on this sandwich is a cake of fried mozzarella. Though the slice of asiago feels kind of silly just sitting there on top of it.

On the downside, the alleged garlic-knot bun did surprisingly little to stand out; my mouth registered it as just bread. Though I really like my garlic, so perhaps it takes more to register for me than others. The chicken itself was merely ho-hum, but not so poor as to drag down the sandwich as a whole.

Wendy’s has something special here by virtue of being an experience that nobody else offers.

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A-Tier

Chick-fil-a Chicken Sandwich

The Chicken Sandwich Wars were launched to defeat this sandwich, so it defines the basis of comparison for the tier list, too. It is, literally, the sandwich to beat.

While it’s been a long time since I’ve eaten one, this sandwich has not changed since before I knew it existed. What I can still tell you is the chicken was above average, the sauce was fantastic but you had to add it yourself for some strange reason, and the pickles added a pleasant brininess to the surface of some well-textured buns. The deluxe version had forgettable cheese, but the lettuce and tomato were remarkably fresh and crisp. The spicy version had some flavor to it and didn’t light my ass on fire the next day, which is important.

Popeye’s Chicken Sandwich

Popeye’s, the chain that dared to show us all the God-emperor was actually mortal, has the target beat on chicken. And that chicken is wrapped in the best breading in the entire list. Where it falls short, though, is on all the other ingredients. The irony is, despite pickin’ the better chicken, the overall package averages out to about the same.

The spicy variation doesn’t really add much to this sandwich. The chain of cajun spice and three levels of chicken apparently just slathers a bit of hot sauce on a regular chicken sandwich to get the spicy one. And that is, frankly, below expectations.

Wingstop Chicken Sandwich

It’s okay to good as far as these chicken sandwiches go, but its ranking is the beneficiary of two bumps: One for the rare toasted buns, and another for the sauce. You can get your sandwich with any of the dozen sauces or rubs Wingstop uses for its wings, so there’s something to fit everyone’s taste. Though I prefer Buffalo Wild Wings’ sauces over Wingstop’s in general, I cannot argue against the variety of flavors and heat levels on hand that none of the other fast food joints provide.

And finally if you like pickles enough that you’re constantly disappointed in seeing only two slices on your chicken sandwiches, Wingstop has you (and the chicken patty) covered. VERY covered.

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S-Tier

KFC’s Classic Chicken Sandwich

I may hate you for quitting on the KFConsole, but you did not quit on this sandwich.

It’s not about the pickles. It’s not about the bun. The mayo is excellent, but it’s still just mayo.

KFC’s sandwich makes it to the top of the list on the strength of the best chicken in the entire rankings. Flavorful and juicy, there was no beating it. Some of the other places certainly have great chicken, but the Colonel is the king here. I’m not disappointed that I had a good sandwich, but it does feel anti-climatic for KFC to top the board.