Filthy Cow Filthy Bird
Review of Filthy Cow Manchester Filthy Bird Special
Website: http://www.filthyfood.co.uk/
What they say:
Buttermilk Crispy Southern Fried Chicken, South Carolina Slaw + Chipotle Mayo.
Price: £8.00.
Calories: Unknown.
Mayo, slaw and crispy chicken. This is the current special at Filthy Cow. Limited menu and rotating special seems to be the way to go for modern burger joints these days.
And this one is chicken. No cheese, which is instantly of concern, but I suspect it won’t be an issue because there’s plenty of lubricant on this, in the form of slaw and Mayo.
A relatively short wait, during which owner Jordan took time out for a chat, explaining the scrutiny that ingredients go through.
Quite apart from the quality of the food, the welcome is very personal. Rather like “Cheers”, if you can remember that far back.
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| A lesson in branding… |
When it arrived, it was textbook Filthy Cow – crunchy paper wrap and a branded sticker marked “special”. The little touches here are presented with consistent finesse.
I felt special, and I imagine every customer feels special here. For all its modern, funky decor and slick branding, Filthy Cow exudes a more timeless, traditional form of customer service.
When I opened the trademark wrapping, I was greeted with a pretty classic form. Neat, shiny brioche bun enclosing its unassuming ingredients. That bun as we know from the Filthy Beast, is very, very good. But it is rather blown away by what lies within.
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| A lesson in presentation… |
This is how a chicken burger should be. I’ve lamented in the last, the lack of a Zinger version of KFC’s ultimate burger, being forced to cobble together my own. This burger takes that somewhat imaginary fast food icon and ramps it up to eleven.
The lack of cheese isn’t just an omission. I can well imagine it is a conscious development choice, allowing the slaw and the chipotle mayo to do their jobs more effectively. I rarely say this, but this benefited from the lack of cheese.
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| A lesson in painstaking development… |
The slaw was delicious. I got a couple of bites of it alone as I munched through this. I’d very happily have this as a side dish to anything.
But it wasn’t a side dish, it was a topping. And up there, it was working with an excellently developed chipotle mayo which performed the dual role of keeping this burger moist, and injecting a perfect amount of heat.
Inferno-chasers like Burger Lad might be a little disappointed, but it wasn’t a shrinking violet either. Just perfect.
And that brings us to the chicken. As ever, the meat makes or breaks a burger and this is well and truly made!
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| A lesson in elegant simplicity… |
The buttermilk coating was a delight, with its crispy crunchy consistency and somehow they manage to fashion a reasonable approximation of a circle. Not a huge thing you might imagine, but the usual essence of a burger is a circular shape. Just another example of the perfectionism going on at Filthy Cow.
And within that delicious crispy crunchy coating was deep fried chicken. My god it was good. It doesn’t take a lot to make chicken tasty but so many places manage to fail. Filthy Cow isn’t one of them. This is outstanding stuff!
There is no chicken option on Filthy Cow’s permanent menu and this tastes utterly outstanding. For these two reasons alone, I’d suggest this be made a permanent item.
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| A lesson in TASTE… |
Whether it is or it isn’t, I’m already looking forward to the next special at Filthy Cow. In the space of two burgers it has shot onto my small list of favourite places.
Admiral Burgerbar
