KFC Secret Menu Ultimate Zinger

11/10/201407/10/2018 Burger Lad 9673 ViewsKFC

Review of KFC Secret Menu Ultimate Zinger

What they say:

Not applicable.

Price: £4.39 for the Ultimate, £3.39 for the Zinger = £7.78.

Calories: 637 for the ultimate, 450 for the Zinger = 1,087 (but minus the Zinger’s bun so I’d guess about 900 calories total).

The Zinger is probably my favourite High Street burger.

KFC’s new Ultimate Burger is amongst the contenders for second place. I think you can see where this is going…

Anyway, KFC took the Secret Menu crown recently when they created the Zinger Stacker for me.

So this time I thought it would be no problem at all. Ah, but the world of secret menu items doesn’t work like that.

What I wanted was an Ultimate Zinger burger.

Essentially an Ultimate, but with a Zinger fillet instead of the two ordinary mini fillets they put in there.

I think it would be a great (and obvious) variation for KFC to offer officially but it hasn’t appeared yet.

So I went into the same branch of Zinger Stacker fame and asked for my Ultimate Zinger.

“No, we can’t do that” came back the answer.

I was dumbfounded. Something about stock not matching sales figures.

I can understand it to a point, but why not include the flexibility in the EPOS to start with, or just offer the thing officially?

I must say I was disproportionately annoyed by that and left hungry and huffy, muttering words to the effect of “well, let the sales and stock add up to zero on this occasion then, hmmph”.

I’d also run out of time, having been held up in traffic and by a group of youths in front of me, who absolutely had to queue up and order each of their things separately one at a time.

But throughout the day, the thought of my Ultimate Zinger just wouldn’t go away.

I’d just have to do it the boring, messy old-fashioned way.

Order the two items and build the thing myself.

I’d end up with a sort of mini-fillet burger with some residual zing as a side dish but at least I’d have my Ultimate Zinger.

Spicy, crispy-coated chicken, slaw, cheese and pulled chicken on top.

The order set off the secret menu alarm…

So I went back later, nursing my pride and ordered a Zinger and an Ultimate.

The restaurant was quiet at least, and it was different staff to earlier. The Ultimate is exactly a pound more than the Zinger. I waited a bit, got my two burgers and set about making a mess.

Essentially it was supposed to be a case of swapping the chicken bits over. However, when I got them I saw the significant difference in size.

The Zinger fillet was actually only a bit bigger than one of the mini fillets and was going to get lost inside the Ultimate.

Over 1,000 calories staring at you…

So I took an executive decision to simply stick the Zinger fillet inside the Ultimate and keep all the rest, ending up with three chunks of chicken.

This was a big burger I’d created, right enough. Hard to get my mouth around, and hard to keep together.

First bite I got a bit of ordinary fillet. So far, so good, so what. Second bite I got a Zing and third bite I got a BBQ Zing.

That made all this messing around suddenly worthwhile. Three distinct chicken flavours and two textures going on in there, ably complemented by the subtle crunchy slaw and the cheese and lettuce.

KFC Ultimate Zinger…

The ultimate bun looks and feels premium but actually, although it tastes good, does a poor job of holding together, the bottom half being a particular culprit.

One of the fundamental criticisms of the Ultimate is that it is far too conservative with the pulled chicken. I concur, I’m afraid.

However, it is a strong taste and blends through well. With so little actual chicken though, I wonder if it might have done just as good a job as a BBQ sauce only?

A shade under £8 for the pleasure…

Chicken shortage was not an issue today though. The two ordinary fillets did their job very well, but I knew the Zinger was in there and every time I got a bite of it, it bit back in its lovely spicy way. A sort of “where’s Wally” with chicken.

All the while, the BBQ flavour was playing its sweet jazz across the whole affair.

As a secret menu item this was absolutely spot on. I’d have it again in a heartbeat.

But (and it is a big “but”), I was still crushingly (BL® note: Krushem-ingly even) disappointed that KFC wouldn’t make it for me, so much so that I must admit it took a bit of a shine off it.