Limited Time Only: KFC Zinger Pie

Three-ish years strong and I’ve never posted a review on this ###blog, until now. A car trip in a city where everything closes early resulted an accidental visit to a nearby KFC to be enchanted by their latest offering: the KFC Zinger Pie.

In true highway fashion Five Dock KFC neighbours a McDonald’s and a petrol station, and it’s not surprising KFC is nowhere near as full as its oppressive burger-wielding counterpart. I saunter across the thick shake stained asphalt of a near empty car park and it’s the kind of place where the occasional seagull struts around despite being nowhere near the water – a la Granville station. I’m second in line behind a couple of bros placing a large order but thankfully I’m told there is one last KFC Zinger Pie left tonight – a potential prelude to ill feels, but regardless, ready for two curious yet ultimately trollish mouths. I make myself comfortable beside a bucket and mop outside as kind adolescent boys and a bluetooth clad drive-through manager stack chairs inside.

The pie is presented in a paper bag, obnoxiously declaring it’s “perfect for the HCG (Home Cricket Ground)”. The red tin base is indicitve of the Zinger flavour as opposed to the tamer Kentucky potato and gravy combo, because I guess red is the universal colour for HOT (or STOP).

To say its innards resembled vomit would be too easy, and we can do better than that. You’d be pleasantly surprised if this were a cup-a-soup; chunky chicken pieces shrouded by blandness, an acceptable phenomenon at 3pm at your godforsaken desk job, unremarkable pastry resembling what you’d expect from any other supermarket or convenience store pie. But it’s 10pm and I’m taking photos in a desolate carpark craving malnourishment. A more appropriate critique from a sober human would read more like this: a very vacant (and very abundant) gravy binds chicken bits with arrogant flecks of useless chilli. It’s so soupy, clever handwork is required to avoid being burned by gravity in more ways than one. What lingers is a sleazy aftertaste of that astringent, flavourless chilli, I’m not even sure how they did it – it’s the equivalent of a decaf coffee, you can definitely taste it but it’s not quite right, leaves you unfulfilled and questioning why? And why can I still taste this an hour later?

The whole point of these junk food reviews is to celebrate the nasty, greasy food we ashamedly thrust into our faces – and like many cliché bloggers I’m left saying I really wanted to enjoy this but sadly there’s not much to love about this pie (and I’m a fan of the Zinger enterprise), it’s basically the anaemic cousin of primary school meat pie offerings. I’m not sure whose appetite this is appeasing, besides maybe the lone gull in the car park, so I hope it enjoyed what I left behind.