McDonald’s Chicken Deluxe
McDonald’s Chicken Deluxe Review
Chicken Deluxe:
What they say:
Two tender Chicken Selects layered with creamy Emmental cheese. Topped with a zesty tomato relish and cool mayo.
Price: £4.39/£5.59/£5.99 (subject to variation).
Calories: 634 kcal.
Ho-Ho-Ho
It’s the most wonderful time of the year – McDonald’s have launched their Festive Menu… and in 2019 this includes the new Chicken Deluxe.
As demonstrated in 2018 and again this year, The Golden Arches appear to prefer focusing their attention on the sweet-side of things at Christmas these days.
Are you Reindeer Ready…!?
It doesn’t look like we’ll see anything like the Festive Cheese Feast, Beef and Cheese Feast or Winter Warmer again. Instead, we get the Big Nasty and unspectacular sounding Chicken Deluxe.
That should be good for Big Tasty fans though as “The Big Tasty will be back in restaurants after a year-long absence.”
The journalist that wrote that statement must have missed the 110-ish days it was previously on the menu in 2019 – in January, March/April and June through to August.
And what can we expect from the Chicken Deluxe?
It’s not too dissimilar to the 2017 Christmas Chicken Warmer – that build also had the controversial two Chicken Selects, but a “fire roasted red pepper sauce” and slivered onions which have been replaced by “zesty tomato relish” and red onion.
It sounds a bit crappy. A chore even to bother reviewing it? And it’s not very festive but that’s an argument I’m not going to touch upon in this analysis.
Nor am I going to poke at the argument that McDonald’s have run out of ideas or they are lazy or that we don’t get decent specials like in overseas countries.
Today, I am 100% focusing on how decent a burger it is… irrespective of the time of year it is available.
My Chicken Deluxe arrived promptly and there is no denying that the promotional box it comes in looks festive. And that is about where the festivity ends…
You could certainly call this latest LTO as Generic Chicken Select Burger No.4 – it’s that uninspiring.
OK let’s focus on the positives first.
The bun looks inviting with its glazed appearance. A small-ish square sesame-topped bun which does look semi-inviting.
My build today was quite tidy looking, but as you can see from the pictures there was a heavy dosage of red onion rings and random chunk. Actually, this red onion overload helped the overall flavour despite looking a bit messy.
Messy?
For those of you calling the Big Tasty a sloppy burger (hey I’m not arguing with you), the Chicken Deluxe is a right load of slop to eat and you’ll require plenty of napkins if you can be bothered sampling this.
And I am afraid it is the mayo that is the dominant force on here.
The tomato relish gets all of its zestiness beaten out of it by the over-arching creaminess of the sloppy mayo. It’s basically beaten into submission by the cool mayo.
If you are wondering if this is a worth a try, I recommend trying it without it.
And that really sums up my overall experience and opinion of the Chicken Deluxe – a generic two Chicken Selects “burger” which apart from the relish, consists of core menu ingredients you will find on any other items at McDonald’s.
For the price, I can 100% confirm that I will not be getting another.
For the money, I would happily order any of my usual favourites – Big Mac, Double Cheeseburgers, a pimped-up Chicken Legend maybe?
If I feel like that, how many hundreds of thousands of people share my feeling? And that people is why we get less adventurous specials and more doubling of QPs or adding of bacon to Big Macs.
I didn’t really expect much walking into this review and I feel disappointed that the zesty tomato relish suffered as a result of a sauce/condiment that can be found on just so many other offerings on the menu.
Leave it off for once would you McDonald’s? Or maybe, just maybe offer a flavoured mayo akin to the one on the KFC Festive Burger? Or how about some Herb & Garlic Seasoned Fries like on the Seriously Festive Menu at McDonald’s Canada last year?
Overall, a bit of a thumbs down – a couple of Chicken Selects thrown on a decent bun with some core ingredients and a new, promising sounding sauce which is drowned-out by a shed-load of standard issue mayo.
The Chicken Deluxe is available until Wednesday 1st January 2020 at participating restaurants only.
Burger Lad®
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/product/chicken-deluxe.html
Chicken Deluxe
£4.39
Hot
- Nice box
- Glazed bun
Not
- Mayo
- Sloppy
To be honest, I’m getting a bit bored with the cookie-cutter Chicken Select burgers that seem to appear for every promotion, except with a different bun and sauce option. It really does seem lazy and unimaginative for the kitchen at McD HQ, as though it’s a way to minimise costs by just reusing and recycling existing products into something that can be upsold at a premium. More and more chains are becoming guilty of this – I’m looking at you too, Starbucks UK.
I do like the Chicken Selects as a menu item, but I don’t like them slapped between a bun – they just don’t feel right in this format.
At least I can get my dose of Big Tasty – I’ve missed it dearly!
This has ended now, the Big Tasty is still on the menu and they had added the Mayo Chicken with Bacon to the menu, that has been on before and will be around £1.49