Kentucky Fried Chicken in Mumbai - A review

To start with, parking is a nuisance here. You'll have to park in one of the bylanes parallel to the KFC joint and walk down.

Wanting to try the 'original KFC chicken' I opted for what is considered their most popular dish, 'KFC Fried chicken' (Cost Rs.125 plus taxes) and two pepsis (Rs.20 each plus taxes). KFC at Linking Road, Khar Mumbai has self service. So you have to pick up your order and carry the tray upstairs where their seating arrangement is. This seems rather silly. Go to an Udipi and you can get served tea that costs less than 10 bucks but pay much more at KFC and stand in line for your tray.

At this point let me tell you, it would be very hard not to find a place to sit at KFC's Linking Road joint in Mumbai. That's one thing we can't hold against them. We visited it at 2 PM on a weekday which is peak time for most restaurants, and found it was emptier than a theatre showing Umrao Jaan in the second week. That is saying a lot!

Another thing I've noticed is that these American restaurants never seem to serve water unless you ask for it specifically. Maybe they think we can survive on flat Cola.

The KFC chicken was very disappointing..too bland and rather oily. Someone should tell these KFC guys to wait until the oil heats up before attempting to fry anything or the food absorbs a helluva lot of oil!

The chicken, four pieces of breast, was barely warm. KFC's hot fried chicken just out of the frying pan is apparently limited to their ad campaigns. At KFC, Khar, chicken that's already been cooked is kept in a warm environment and served when some poor sod asks for it.

We needed ketchup to go with the chicken. Unlike McDonalds, KFC doesn't bother giving you the ketchup with your order. They have these specially packed pouches of ketchup that you'll get if you ask for them, specifically. You'll need to attract the attention of one of their employees for this. The KFC ketchup packs are deceptively large. You'll need about four of them to go with four pieces of chicken. If you don't ask for four at once, you'll have to repeat this drill twice.

If you want a large Pepsi, someone at the ground floor will scrawl 'Large Pepsi' on a piece of paper. You can exchange this paper for the Pepsi when you go upstairs. Makes it so much like work!

If you're like me, you'll give up on their meal half way. No point stuffing yourself with something as fattening as badly fried chicken (BFC?).

Lastly, you'll find their washroom is a stinking mess OUTSIDE the premises unlike Pizza Hut and McDonalds. An in-house wash basin isn't much to ask. Their entrance and exit are at two separate corners. Could this be to prevent the customers who're leaving from forewarning the unsuspecting few coming in?

I wanted to ask them to pay a visit to Mumbai's Koliwada area to learn how to make good chicken but something told me it wouldn't work anyway. Their chicken may be good enough for the Americans but in Mumbai, we prefer our good ol' Tandoori chicken.

Rating 1/5