Dear Grilled Chicken Sandwich,
You suck. I mean you really, really suck.
I'm not just picking on The Blackfriar's version pictured above -- the McKinney Avenue pub just happened to be the unlucky subject of this food critic's rant -- I'm talking about all grilled chicken sandwiches everywhere. All of you blow.
You're never ever juicy. Disrespectful grill jockeys cook the shit out of you, and you're served on those pathetic white bread buns. I'm not sure if it's fear of salmonella or just absent minded abuse, but the results are always the same:
Rubbery, flavorless chicken protein.
While cooks have fetishized hamburgers enough to warrant an all out empire of stand alone restaurants, you, grilled chicken sandwich, remain off the grid. There is no grilled chicken sandwich house, but there are 70 million burger houses. That's likely how things will stay because you're pitiful.
Perhaps if someone had treated you with respect during the dawning ages of bar food things might have been different between us. You could have been lovingly brined and gently grilled to perfection, but instead you come frozen in a bag, to be thawed under a gentle stream of water, and then grilled until you no longer resemble any semblance of edible food.
While burgers get topped with duck eggs and pork belly, you get plain old mayo at best, cloying barbecue sauce at worst, and honey mustard that tastes neither like honey or mustard.
You're stupid. And I'll never eat you again.
Signed,
Scott Reitz
Food Critic, Dallas Observer
