I have to admit I was a bit trepidatious about today's expeditition to try the latest Time Limited Offer (TLO), the BBQ Bacon Boss Box Meal to give it its official title.
The reason for my sense of foreboding? I had opted to try what one commenter has called 'Worst KFC in the UK' accompanied by a slew of similar comments around 3 years ago. However a later comment posted a year ago paints the place in a better light, but it was time for KFB to check it out.
Why had I chosen this particular branch? Knowing that this TLO contains bacon, I knew a couple of my more regular haunts are halal branches which don't sell the bacon. I presumed, correctly as it turned out, that a small market town in the middle of a national park would not have the ethnic diversity to warrant a halal conversion.
After a number of fairly innovative recent TLO's the product design teams seem to be taking a break and have thrown together this burger from existing ingredients pretty quickly before adding an alliterative moniker to capture the attention:
When ordering I stuck with the Original Recipe (OR) fillet so I could enjoy this burger as Colonel intended. I opted for a side of gravy too and was delighted when the branch supervisor agreed to substitute my piece of chicken on the bone for a mini fillet ( although she said she wasn't supposed to, when I whipped out my Colonels Club card with it's swollen points total, I think she knew she was rewarding a real fan).
Following the comments I wasn't expecting much but was presented with a well constructed burger, just a couple of minor gripes, the hash brown was a little too brown and the bun had hardly seen the toaster, so was rather cool. The fries too looked a little overcooked but in fact were very nice and the gravy was an incredible three step that passed the standing chip test:
The Burger itself was exactly what you'd expect although I have to say it was well balanced with each of the key ancilliary ingredients (Cheese / Bacon / BBQ) coming through nicely. I just had one bite where the the BBQ was a little overpowering. The OR, so often overlooked by KFB in favour of Zinger was also very tasty although given I was tucking into this at about 13:20 not as fresh as it could have been.
The Buxton branch I have to say exceeded my expectations, It was clean with good service and helpful friendly staff.
Although there's a lack of innovation here, this is a solid contender hot on the heels of some good TLO's therefore earns itself a solid 6.5 out of ten.
