I was dragging myself to a connecting bus journey after a long and stressful day at work (where I hadn’t eaten lunch as I had too much important shit to do) when I chanced upon a fast food outlet as I struggled down the street, weighed down by the body-stopping hunger that writhed through me. Awesome! I thought as I stepped inside to be greeted by a warm, familiar, and almost spicy smell. Unfortunately, the queue for KFC was too big and there were no seats free. Balls… I turned around and marched outside in a huff then scoured the dirty streets, looking for something else.
My slowing diminishing vision landed upon the Chicken Cottage sign, jutting out from one of the shabby buildings that adorned the strip. I had nothing to lose. (turns out I did – years from my life and irreplaceable units of time) Fried chicken is fried chicken, I stupidly thought as I pushed open the grease riddled door.
The Decor and Ambience:
‘Chicken Shithole’ is what the establishment should be renamed; not so much a cottage, more of a spawn point for all the world’s hate and rubbish. Deceit was flowing through me, and I had only just finished wiping the grease from the door off of my hand…
I engaged my surroundings using my eyes and it was the saddest moment of my life. Pain and loss seeped from the walls and clung in the air, like a lingering cloud of an unexpected divorce. The floor was protected under a thin layer of gum and oil, while the walls were splattered with watered-down ketchup, blood, and the memories of happier places. They do however seem proud of their logo, as in this particular eatery, it was plastered everywhere. Wherever I looked I saw that stupid circle with that stupid blue chicken holding back his stupid mate, the red chicken, from getting into a street fight.
The general custom of this Chicken Cottage seemed to consist of teenage ne’er do wells, all of whom were throwing chips at each other. I looked around to find a poster advertising this chip-throwing bonanza, but couldn’t find this event advertised. I curiously looked upon these future captains of industry and sighed.
The lighting in this room of crumbling dreams was needlessly bright and oppressive. Horrid white light blasted down from the ceiling as if Jesus himself was descending onto our plane of existence. It was so bright that I could see into the future and had I looked hard enough, I wouldn’t have ordered a meal.
The Service:
I walked over to the counter like a man condemned and ordered the 2 piece chicken meal. The burly men behind the counter accepted my order and tender with an expression of faint disinterest, bordering on disgust. Charming folks, really.
I sat down at an empty table and push aside the mountain of trash left behind by the assholes before me and studied by surroundings more as I nervously waited for my meal.
“2 pieeeeece meeeeeal?,” A voice boomed throughout the building. I coyly raised my arm to cement his cry for the food’s owner. He glanced me a look of emptiness as he tipped the polystyrene and plastic containers of gunk onto a wet tray.
Wonderful. I slip and slide my way over to collect my prize and slip and slide my way back to my seat.
The Meal:
In return for my hard-earned money, I received what you see above. I’d have rather hurled my money into the ocean, and then drank seawater until I vomited out my very being for all the good this meal did to me.
The chicken tasted, well, odd. It had a certain bitterness to it. Like excitingly taking something you’ve spent years saving up for to the till and then finding out it’s way more expensive than advertised, and then returning home to see the bailiffs taking everything/one you’ve ever loved away forever. Then being framed for murder. Then being kicked. It was also rather bland. Bland and bitter; although I suspect that the bitter part is from me, and not the chicken. As each bite of the chicken leg led to a mouthful of heart attacks, I noticed this and stopped immediately.
I placed my half eaten chicken leg back in the polystyrene container and slowly closed the lid.
The chips were the only thing I ate as they were familiar to me. The warm, cardboard taste of fluffy nothingness comforted me throughout this ordeal. I sampled the fine array of sauces that Chicken Cottage had to offer. Spicy sauce and ketchup – both contained within greasy, mucky, and disgusting bottles. I imagined that if one were to remove all of the extra water that Chicken Cottage injects into the normal sauce, those big bottles would have a single sachet of standard-quality ketchup between them. Yum!
The coleslaw was a sorry mess of gloopy misery, housed inside a paper-thin, plastic tub of hate. I dipped my fork in and returned with an entire cabbage leaf. I could have made a better coleslaw if I had drawn vegetables on dog muck and covered it with mayonnaise.
The Verdict:
I left that place shivering and shaking like a Vietnam War vet. Every single fiber of my being was beginning to shut down. I enjoy my fast food as I’m a man of very lazy tendencies, but this establishment was a nightmare, reimagined as a fast food restaurant. The only saving grace would be the pricing – very affordable, but then dog shit fried in lighter fluid can’t be that costly to make…
