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| Behold: The Holy Grail? |
I have yearned to write reviews of the goods and services that we consume in this sweet dysfunctional paradise homeland of Trinidad & Tobago. My first focus: KFC, or more specifically, the Honey Bar-B-Que Wings of KFC.
Like any other country in the World, Trinidad & Tobago is fixated on the FIFA World Cup currently taking place in Brazil. One of the most recent marketing initiatives to come out of the Colonel Sanders Empire is chicken wings dipped in a sweet, sticky, Honey Bar-B-Que sauce. What does this have to do with soccer? I do not have the faintest clue, BUT, if you order this new-to-T&Tobago offering from KFC, you do get a limited edition glass of a famous soccer player who may be participating in the World Cup.
At this stage I need to add that I am more of a wing aficionado than a soccer fan. All I know about the "beautiful game" is that the objective is to get the ball into the opponent's goal. Off-sides and corner kicks are not my specialty. I can, nevertheless, drink Buffalo Sauce straight from the bottle, and tell when a wing is properly battered and fried.
I also need to add, for the sake of the people who are not familiar with Trinidad and Tobago, that down here, KFC is not merely a fast food restaurant: it is a religion - worshiped devoutly by our citizens, who would expend more of their irreplaceable, divinely given time waiting in line for that precious red and white box or bucket, sometimes over an hour, which may be more time than it would take to prepare a similar home-cooked version of fried chicken and mashed potatoes.
While I do not admit to regularly attending the Church of the Colonel, I do occasionally partake in its hot and oily ritualistic sacrifice of local chickens with "11 Secret Herbs and Spices". This time, however, I wanted something novel, innovative and exceptional. And there it was, emblazoned on the white translucent plastic sign: Honey Bar-B-Que Wings! There were three people in front of me: each one requesting a litany of dead birds until my turn finally came. The young cashier, who looked pre-adolescent, but may have been marginally post adolescent in order to be working legally, takes my order and my money with the greatest of ease. Her assistant, a slightly older gentleman fills the box with mechanical precision and efficiency, only to suddenly halt when the box is beginning to look like it has a decent amount of food in it and utter to me, "Bossman, we don't have enough for the seven-wing special. You'll have to take two of the regular wings".
I accept the inconvenience. I am understanding and mature. I am also hungry as hell. Besides, the limited edition glass he gives me has a depiction of Lionel Messi, arguably the world's greatest soccer play right now, tense, poised, about to deliver a death blow to a soccer ball with his left foot. I went home happy that night.
By now you must be asking what do the wings taste like? The truth is that they are not bad. If you want variety, they will satisfy that need. If you are famished and feel like that you need to insert something into your mouth before you do something stupid, like biting someone's head off, then that urgent crisis will be thwarted by this most recent delicacy from KFC in Trinidad & Tobago. The wings are not mind-blowingly amazing. You will not find yourself eating these little morsels to the bone and going on to masticate on your own fingers, gleefully smacking your saucy lips with after each bite. No. You will just be.....satisfied.
Just don't expect to be flabbergasted and overwhelmed. This is KFC; and you won't get gourmet taste for regular boxed food served by people who are earning close to minimum wage. But oh my, that precious glass.....with Lionel Messi from Argentina! Actually, it's more like a glassette than a glass. This illustrious drinking vessel looks like a decent tumbler on the sign which you use as the rationale for placing your order, but in reality it seems to be closer to a shot glass when you hold it in your hand; or in between your thumb and forefinger.
Now please, don't get me wrong. The wings are lacklustre in size and taste, but they are good enough to justify a repeat experience. I went to the same KFC outlet two days later, expecting to make the same order. I was hoping that the small deficiency had been rectified and like a determined athlete, I vowed that this time things will be better; I knew what to expect. This time, I was prepared! But this is Trinidad and Tobago, and most importantly, this is KFC in Trinidad and Tobago. A different cashier greeted me this time, or could it be that this was the same cashier who had undergone a few pubescent developments over the past 48 hours. The assistant guy was definitely the same person, but on this visit he informed me that were all out of Honey Bar-B-Que Wings.
Damn.
I left silent and empty handed this time; sans wings, sans glass, but somewhere on my bookshelf, a black and white Lionel Messi in a little box with the Pepsi logo is about to kick the living S%& out of something/someone.
