The KFC Double Down! Perhaps Patton Oswalt is smiling, somehwere.

 Perhaps you've heard of the "double down" from KFC? When you are setting up any type of web account, they ask for increasingly long passwords to decrease the ability of a person to simply try all the combinations of letters or numbers to guess your code. In fast food, there is a similar thing happening. In the ingredient matching game that is fast food, the double down is the inevitable combination of two chicken breasts, backon, cheese and sauce. When "chicken" is in your restaurant name, you definitely have a finite number of ingredient possibilities. On top of that, a fast food establishment as old as KFC would be, understandably, pretty close to using up all of its combinations by now, unless it invented new chicken parts (which it did, i.e. "popcorn chicken").
 In fact, if you were to look at the Kentucky Fried Chicken Famous Bowl, you would think that KFC ran out of combinations a few years ago, when it inexplicably chucked them all into the same container and sold them to people short on depression and non-waistbanded pants. Patton Oswalt famously called it, a "failure pile in a sadness bowl" and even taste tested the item for The Onion (you should read his piece). I had similar expectations for the "double down." You may also know that I am working on reducing my fat content. I figure my belly may soon be illegal, if I am to believe what I am hearing from political pundits in Washington. This actually delayed my foray to KFC, since I thought the "double down" would unavoidably make me fatter. But, one day I saw a headline that happened to mention the calorie count for the double down and thought that, in the name of science, I would consume a double down.

Prior to leaving, and contrary to the spirit of the "double down", I talked my buddy Kevin into going. My proposal was that we would each order one. He would order the grilled version and I the fried and we'd split them. I was "hedging" my bet on the "double down." Also, to keep it as healthy as possible, my side item would be a salad.

The verdict:

I liked the double down. They were both tasty, but the fried one was clearly more tasty. The shocking thing was, that the fried double down is, as I recall, less than 100 calories more than the grilled version. You may as well get the fried in my opinion. I did not feel my soul descending to the depths of infinite sadness while eating this "sandwich". I felt a little bit down when I saw the savage assault other patrons were making on their health with their KFC purchases while I was eating my modest meal, however.

Indeed, the "double down", in both incarnations, is good. I don't really have anything very bad, or even a superlative good, to say about this item. The saddest part of my meal, was that salad. Look at it. Sad iceberg lettuce, with two genetically modified tomatoes (they were probably sentient). They had no diet dressing, as I recall. There is only one compound word that can describe that salad and it is: half-assed.

KFC has made some progress on becoming a place you can eat without slowly committing suicide, but they have a ways to go. In the meantime, enjoy a double down.