February 15, 2017
Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice
KFC's 'Georgia Gold Honey Mustard BBQ Extra Crispy Tenders.'
A good honey mustard is hard to find.
If you’re like me, you will order multiple sides of it to save for times when you are stuck with a subpar honey mustard. If you’re really desperate, you may try to get the restaurant to tell you what brand they use. However, once they can clearly see you are hooked, they will usually withhold this information and eventually jack up the price to profit on your developing “hon-mus” addiction. (Trust me on this.)
The reason for this condiment fanaticism is that honey mustard is so easy to get wrong. Sometimes, it’s way too sweet; other times, not sweet enough. The taste can range from yellow maple syrup to slightly sweeter hot dog mustard. There’s an intricate balance of honey and mustard that must be attained in order to reach perfection, a tastebud Venn diagram that can lead to delight or disaster.
As advertised during the Super Bowl, except this one doesn't come with a gold-plated Billy Zane.
You may have seen the bizarre advertisements for the chicken starring a gold-plated Billy Zane as The Colonel, a perfect match to battle a skyscraper-tall Mecha-CeeLo in a monster movie that I would definitely watch half of. They even targeted WWE fans like me in this spot starring lovable Jersey-bro tag team Enzo & Cass, in which Enzo is most definitely going to have sex with said chicken. It’s quite the rave review.
These 6 tenders have 810 calories and 43 grams of fat - not including biscuits, mashed potatoes, coleslaw or pickles, (Source: KFC's Nutrition Calculator.)
The tangy sweetness is more subtle than I would have imagined and for the restaurant that invented the Double Down, subtlety is usually not their thing.
The sauce is generously applied to the Extra Crispy Tenders, but not dripping in it, never overpowering the chicken. On the honey mustard scale, this one is just right. I would definitely buy this on its own as a dip. There’s a kick to it, though it’s nowhere near as powerful as the Nashville Hot Chicken. There’s also the sweetness of the honey, along with the usual BBQ spices. But what separates the Georgia Gold with regular honey BBQ is the tangy hints of mustard and vinegar, giving it a very unique flavor that’s unlike the rest of their menu.
The actual chicken was extremely juicy inside with the extra crispiness working as a good base for the sauces. When prepared correctly, as this batch was, KFC’s chicken, with its famous herbs and spices, ranks among one of the best on the market today. My only complaint was that the strips were not covered with slices of pickles or the checkered wax paper, as promised.
Verdict: KFC’s Georgia Gold is an excellent chicken choice, one that will hopefully find its way to the permanent menu. Also, if you do find the honey mustard of your dreams, never let it go.
