Fast Food Review: Rip’n Chick’n from Popeyes

Posted August 5th, 2011 | 5:12pm by Chefprotoss

Halloween comes early to Popeyes this year with their horrific looking Rip’n Chick’n. They have finally tackled the annoying problem of fried chicken resembling an actual body part of a chicken and made it look like how we all really want it to look… like a deep fried shrunken hand. I tried making a wish and no, it didn’t come true, the fingers didn’t curl, and nothing horrible happened to me or any one close to me. I did however feel that at any moment my horror movie titled Rip’n Chick’n could leap from the box and start killing prostitutes.

My first impressions aside, Popeyes describes it differently:

We cut a plump, all white meat chicken breast into big strips, marinate it in four different peppers and Louisiana seasonings then hand batter and bread it in our signature coating then fry it up crispy. We call it Rip’n Chick’n because you just rip it and dip it. Get it right now with our Cajun fries, buttermilk biscuit and Ranch dipping sauce.

Thanks to An Immovable Feast, I discovered that the “signature coating” is a blend of four peppers; jalepeno, habenero, white and black peppers. While there is no relation between chiles and peppercorns (a pet peeve of mine when a restaurant describes their product), it comes from Popeyes, so I will let it slide. Combine that with batter and hot oil and you should have a winner.

The combo comes with Cajun fries a buttermilk biscuit and Ranch dipping sauce. I opted out on the Ranch; if dipping fried food it a sauce that is 80% oil is your thing, then eat it the way Popeyes recomends. Make sure you have an ambulance on stand by if you do so. I am sick of the Ranch trend that started twenty years ago. Ranch is inescapable at most fast food restaurants, so if that is what people demand I might be alone with that opinion.

While clearly taking the award for ugliest food ever, this was delicious. It is a portion of white meat chicken breast, coated in a spicy blend of awesome. Whatever the “signature blend” of spices is, they need to put it on everything. The “spicy” regular fried chicken takes a back seat to the Rip’n Chick’n. It was moist, crunchy and insanly flavorful. I took it to the next level and dipped it in the Cajun gravy from my mashed potatoes (not pictured). I felt like I was in the french quarter eating food prepaired by a grandmother. Fast food shouldn’t taste this good. Ranch is for suckers. Go for gravy. Couple that with a fresh baked biscuit and this was as close to gastronomic, comfort food heaven as a chain fried chicken joint can get.

The only real fault I see with this is the idiotic novelty of ripping and dipping fried chicken. Popeyes should just fry the regular chicken this way. If so, I would easily rate this a 10 out of 10. I also feel the score would be lower if I dodged the gravy for Ranch. Either way with all the fast food crap on the market right now, Rip’n Chick’n blows about a good 97% of the competitions offerings out of the water. Even if it does look like a science experiment gone wrong.