BV Food Enthusiasts

Chicken Cottage: The UKs Finest…

Chicken cottage is a bit like KFC. A bit like KFC. If you find KFC a bit fancy and feel that perhaps KFC products are of a too high quality or perhaps you think KFC have under salted the chicken. Well then Chicken Cottage could be the place for you.  In their defence they do advertise that all their meat is Halal which, while not really a major concern for me, could be an issue if you thought you would be eternally damned if you accidently nibbled the wrong bit of deep fry. 

  They have the classic orders like Fried chicken, chips, chicken burgers, and of course pre-mix soda pop(though they have their own brands with jazzy names like Citrus Thunder).  One thing I do dig about Chicken Cottage is the menus simplicity: you will not find salads, mashed potatoes, warm rolls, and they would kick you out if you asked for a low calorie drink.   I’m not against the evolving menu of the McDonalds or Subway but if I am going for some Fastfood I don’t want to be distracted by being offered cut up apples in a stupid little bag.

I am lucky enough to have one of these fine establishments quite close to my home and this evening myself and my tasting associates went down to taste the goods on the behalf of the B.V.F.E.  

The Finchley Road Chicken Cottage is an interesting place.  It’s half internet cafe and half fastfood restaurant.   There are big signs exclaiming “Please do not eat on the computers!” However I can see half a dozen people flaunting this rule with nary a care.   The place is packed with big fat men chomping on greasy legs while searching the web for gay porn.  I can picture their wives undoubtedly at home putting the kids to bed and wondering why Paul is working late, again.

There is a guy standing in front of me wearing a black t-shirt.  On the t-shirt is a picture of a big magnet.  There are cats being pulled towards the magnet with terrified expressions.  Underneath this disturbing depiction of feline abuse there are the words “Pussy magnet”. 
Now this is not a social commentary so I will not plumb the depths of my disdain for this plonker (there was plenty of ammunition: he ordered with his head phones in and playing.  What was he listening to? I am sure it was Nickleback. He was a CUNT).  I mention him only to let the reader understand what sort of customers you may have to rub shoulders with should you ever have the misfortune of stumbling into the Finchley Rd Chicken Cottage of a Sunday.

Regardless of the perverted customers, and the nonce in the queue, I eventually get my order. My usual which is a Tower Burger Combo the price is £2.99.  For that I get burger (chicken piece and hash brown), chips, and a drink. That’s mentally cheap and nothing really compares price wise. The same KFC combo cost’s £5.99 you do the maths.  Converting it to NZD’s doesn’t really give you a realistic price comparison. To give you some sort of reference the average Footie price from Subway is about four to six quid. The other cracking thing about Chicken Cottage is you can get, for free, as many containers of chilli sauce as you want.  And this is not sauce for the casual Sweet Thai Chilli taster. This is a ball’s to the wall chilli experience guaranteed to leave you with your eyes watering and grabbing for the Raspberry Rush. My tasting associate, Ms Tutu, goes for her usual a three piece meal deal. Again comparatively cheap at £3.49.

The tower burger is delicious and definitely my main reason for going. Is there anything as beautiful as a Chicken fillet and a Hashbrown co-existing in a warm sesame seed bun? No there’s fucking not.  A special trick I love (shared by a lot of experienced fastfoodies) is to lather up the bun with a generous helping of Chilli sauce.  This really gives the taste buds a good rogering.  The soda pop is really quite flaccid and hardly deserves the name but once your mouth gets hot enough you don’t really notice anyway.

A couple of big downsides with Chicken Cottage. First is, and it’s quite a big one for me, the chips that they make are shoe string fries, think McDonalds, and in the opinion of this reviewer, these are always, always, inferior to the thicker KFC chips.  Second is the portions are smaller than standard fastfood joints. The final problem: it should come with a warning on all chicken boxes, “This product will cause an immediate and ferocious outbreak of disfiguring ACNE”.   I am currently nursing some serious red mole hills.

Over all it’s a satisfying eat out.  Although you are left feeling a little bit gross, a bit like you just ate three table spoons of salt and drank a cup of oil, but this is to be expected in any correctly proportioned consumption of fastfood.  As mentioned early small portions and shitty chips really let the meal down.  I give my local Cottage a 3 hocks out of 5. Pretty average but enjoyable none the less.

Hi

Welcome. Come on in. Pull up a chair. Pour yourself a glass of your favourite pre-mix soda pop.

This is the headquarters for our weekly reports from the bowels of the culinary underworld. From the filthy fast-food joints of the West to the dio inducing curries of the orient we are traversing the worst, and the best, that this edible world has to offer. If it can be found, ordered, and consumed quickly then we want to investigate it.

All our reports will be using a 5 Hock system that correlates roughly to this:

1 Hock   - Comparable to faecal matter
2 Hocks – Poor but edible
3 Hocks – Average
4 Hocks - Hockin good with one or two minor setbacks
5 Hocks - Perfect

So that’s our gig. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures. If we inspire just one healthy eating person to gorge themselves on a party bucket of KFC, well, this will all have been worth it.

We are culinary expeditionaries so slip on your space suit, tie up your bib and follow us into the astronomical wonderland that is our fast-food lives.

Kind regards.

Luther