The Fried Chicken Face Off: And The Winner Isn't What You'd Expect

JustJenn tried to kill us this weekend. And we were willing participants.

The Franklin Avenue Quartet (hmm, that's a new one, by the way -- you like?) was invited this Saturday over to crafty/foody/designy blogger extraordinaire JustJenn's place, where she was organizing a great big, greasy FRIED CHICKEN FACE-OFF.

How could we not, right?

We grabbed a bucket of the golden crispy stuff from Glendale's famous Dinah's Fried Chicken (as seen in "Little Miss Sunshine") and plopped it next to seven other fried chickens Jenn had found from various sources.

Why fried chicken? Well, first off, why not? But second of all, Jenn had sent in a proposal for a food face-off to food blogging community Foodbuzz, which said yes to her idea.

What's that slurping noise? Oh, it's just my arteries hardening.

Along with a few other families, we chowed down, piece by piece, on all eight varieties. Interestingly, all eight came in a variety of colors, consistency and grease level. And there was a definite difference in taste (although after a while, they did all start to morph together as the grease coated my tongue).



Jenn asked us to rate the eight varieties in terms of tastiest flavor, most juicy, greazy factor and "best overall chicken."

The contenders:






I personally liked A, D and E the best. A was light on the grease, which is a plus in my book; D had a nice, sweet coating and was probably my favorite; and E had a good spice.

On the whole, however, F won the big prize.

So which was which?

A: Popeye’s
B: Knott’s Berry Farm
C: KFC
D: The Loft Hawaiian style fried chicken
E: Louisiana Fried Chicken
F: Albertson’s supermarket
G: Dinah’s Family Restaurant
H: Litz Restaurant

Whoa. Albertson's won? (Louisiana Fried Chicken was a close second.) That's just... wrong.

But the taste testers have spoken. (By the way, we brought home some of the Loft's Hawaiian chicken -- and JustJenn was right, it tasted great even cold. The Loft now wins my vote.)



This being JustJenn, our taste test ended with homemade cupcakes. In related news, my pants don't fit today. But NO REGRETS.

(Check out JustJenn's roundup of the face off here.)