Mike L.
Yelp
tl;dr: decent chicken sandwich, barely okay tater tots. High price~meh value.
Dude, we all know American-influenced breakfast has been the hype for how long now. Everyone wants an aesthetically pleasing photo of their 'breakfast' to add to their highlights and I think this place is just trying to cash in on that.
I got the chicken sandwich which comes with the tater tots. Why doesn't this come with salad like the other sandwiches/burgers? I want a salad too :( Coleslaw in the sandwich is a condiment, not a substitute for a salad imo. If their prices were lower, I would've gotten more to try in one sitting. $15 after-tax, I was okay full but wasn't fully satisfied. The experience felt lacking.
Chicken breast itself was hot and tender; seasoned quite lightly with a buttermilk-taste marinade and crispy on the outside. A few thick chunks of batter stayed crispy even though it was already in a sandwich, not bad. The batter was nothing too special but was crispy and had a nice crunch in the first initial bites. The chicken size was barely okay for $15; it was like 3/8" thick (Popeyes is thicker). There were no special flavors that would incite me to try it again; my taste buds didn't get excited much.
The spicy mayo is not that alluring (tastes like their own less flavorful In-n-Out spread with a light hint of spicy sauce), and I would not call it spicy (milder than black pepper lmao). It's like they were trying to skip the pickles, threw relish into the mix (hence similar to In-n-Out spread) and added some sriracha/spicy sauce just for the color. Brioche bread was the right choice and toasted nicely, I will give them that. The coleslaw was not bad honestly, but I'd like it outside the sandwich for the next reason I will get to. It's a good sandwich, ruined by the price and how watery the slaw and spicy mayo spread becomes.
In the end, my sandwich was sweating out so much juice even the sandwich wrap couldn't save it that I needed two napkins to hold the sandwich together. The fact that it became watery made the chicken lose its crispiness within 5 minutes or so.
This sandwich would be subpar if gotten delivered or to-go. The chicken seems like the type that would lose flavor after getting cold since there wasn't much to start with. They need a thicker mayonnaise (both coleslaw and spicy mayo use it obviously), so I think that fucked it up.
Sandwiches aren't supposed to drip that much juice (look at pics) unless you got a triple bacon cheeseburger oozing with saturated cow lipidy goodness. This wasn't chicken juice drippings, this was water from the sauces.
It tasted like a good & simple homemade chicken sandwich. I feel like I was nitpicking. For the price tho....I had better chicken sandwiches; I would definitely pick up 3 Popeyes chicken sandwiches than this honestly.
Tater tots were fried at the wrong temperature (gotta be 325 F+ for defrosted or 350 F+ for frozen) because they were not that crispy and had a glistening amount of oil left between the crevices of potatoes. The serving temperature was cold too as well. This place needs to understand that you fry the chicken first then the tots so their serving temperature would match, not at the same time for that the tots chill while the chicken is still saunaing in the deep fryer. I had a hot chicken sandwich with barely warm taters :/ If you're serving run-of-the-mill taters, fry them correctly, please. Regular ketchup with regular tots. This doesn't feel like it belongs in a $15 meal.
I won't give this place lower than 4 stars because they just started. They need to work on providing a better experience for the money spent. I know it's a food court (are we supposed to expect lower food prices for the shared space or hype-expensive trendy eats like food festivals? idk, someone pls tell me), but this place tastes like someone just had money to open their first food place and trying to be crafty with the show but not flavors. It didn't seem like a chef opened this place based on the tastes and offerings. I will try their other stuff on the menu later so the 4 stars stay for now. More like 3.5 stars tbh