Nikhil: From exclusive items to portion sizes,
we wanted to find out all the differences
between KFC in India and the US.
This is "Food Wars."
Here in India, we have two types of chicken sandwiches,
a Krisper and a Zinger.
In the US, we have two chicken-sandwich options,
the Chicken Little, 'cause it's little,
and, of course, the Kentucky Fried Chicken
chicken sandwich. The classic.
Now let's weigh them to see
how much they weigh, obviously.
Ugh! This thing has not been cleaned
in a very long time.
Nikhil: All right, first up, the chicken Krisper.
Joe: Our Chicken Little in the US weighs ...
Next up, the chicken Zinger.
Joe: 240 grams for the classic chicken sandwich.
This thing is a work of art.
All right, on to chicken popcorn.
Here in India, we have it in three sizes,
regular, medium, and large.
We're going to weigh our large popcorn
to see how much we get.
I actually really love chicken popcorn.
I have an idea. We should weigh one popcorn chicken
and add that back to the total.
My bad, my bad.
They should serve this in movie theaters.
I don't want regular popcorn anymore.
Mm!
I love that they sprinkle in a bunch of sesame seeds,
and it adds a nice crunch to it.
What? Sesame seeds? We don't have that.
All right. You guys are lucky. That sounds really nice.
We only have one size according to the website
and the KFC I went to, and that is this.
How accurate do these measurements need to be, really?
Oh, it's so good!
Unfortunately, here in India,
we do not have mashed potatoes,
but that would be pretty awesome.
We do have fries. We're big fans of them.
And they come in two sizes, medium and large.
And in the US, we also have two sizes of fries at KFC,
the individual, for an individual,
and the large, also for an individual.
Nikhil: Let us now measure the large
to see how much you get.
140 grams.
[laughing]
That's never not funny.
That's the third time that's happened,
and it's always funny.
Look at that block of fries.
Our largest fry is more than double their largest fry.
Here's our individual.
150!
Our smallest is bigger than their largest.
In KFC India, we can get our chicken in six portion sizes.
No. 1, the single piece.
Two-piece.
They like to give you
one breast piece and one leg piece. Kind.
Four-piece. Leg piece to top it all off.
The leg piece on top, as they say.
Like cherry on top. No? OK.
Now we move on to buckets.
We have four sizes.
The first one is a five-piece bucket
that comes with only leg pieces
and also does not come in a bucket for some reason.
Why, KFC? I want a bucket.
Next up, we have a six-piece bucket,
an eight-piece bucket,
and the largest one of them all,
a 10-piece leg bucket.
Whew, that's a lot of chicken.
In the US, our KFC chicken comes in seven portion sizes.
One, which you can get à la carte;
two-piece, with a combo;
three-piece, with a combo;
four-piece, with a combo.
Then [snaps] buckets.
Did that work? OK.
We have an eight-piece.
Yeah, eight pieces.
The 12-piece.
And our largest bucket, the 16-piece.
Ready, Yuelei?
What?
You get the idea.
Next up, you're going to need a drink
to wash all that chicken down.
Here in India, we don't serve cups, we just serve cans.
We have Pepsi; 7Up; Mirinda, which is an orange soda;
Red Bull; and a Pepsi PET bottle.
However, these will vary from store to store.
In some places, they might not serve plastic,
and in some places, you might not get these drinks,
you might get something else.
They also serve something called a virgin mojito Krusher,
which they don't deliver, unfortunately,
but here's an image of it.
Refreshing.
American drinks come in these following sizes:
the regular, which is 20 ounces,
and the large, which is 30 ounces.
And we don't stop there.
If you want, you can also get
half-a-gallon bag
of your favorite drink of choice.
Look at this thing!
Mm.
It's convenient.
[burps]
Here is everything you'll find on the menu at KFC India
that you won't get in the US.
And here's everything you can find at a KFC in the US
you won't find in India.
Take a look, India. Take a good look.
OK, let's start with chicken.
In India, apart from the crispy chicken,
we also get smoky red chicken.
Ooh.
Wow.
I believe this is KFC's answer to tandoori chicken.
If you guys don't know what a tandoor is,
it's basically a cylindrical oven
that they light up using wood fire or charcoal,
and it adds a really smoky flavor to the meats
or breads that you cook inside of it.
I doubt KFCs across the country have an actual tandoor,
but the flavoring definitely smells like that.
The marinade looks like that.
Oh, my God, that's actually pretty good.
You know what, KFC?
Pretty good job.
You have to remember, KFC is competing
with a lot of Mughlai restaurants across every Indian city,
and while this doesn't have as much of that
smoky char that a lot of tandoori kebabs have,
it has a lot of flavor,
and the chicken is quite juicy.
Good job.
It's super spicy though,
so if you're somebody who can't handle spice,
go a little easy on this one.
When an Indian says something's spicy, it's spicy.
I believe you, man. I believe you.
That looks incredible.
We, unfortunately,
don't really have anything too spicy on the menu
for the chicken-on-the-bone options.
Really the only thing that we have here
that apparently you guys don't have
is something that is what I associate
Kentucky Fried Chicken with, is extra-crispy.
I don't know exactly what makes it extra-crispy,
but it is, as you can imagine,
crispier than the regular chicken.
[crunching]
Extra-crispy to me is far superior
to the regular way they cook chicken.
I think it should be the other way around.
This should be the regular,
and the other one should be, like, half-crispy.
You know what I mean? This is way better.
All right, let's move on to chicken sandwiches.
Here in India, we don't have an American chicken sandwich,
but we have a Zinger
and a smaller sandwich called a Krisper. Cute.
The Krisper looks like it wants to grow up
and be a Zinger someday.
They also come in two variants,
a spicy Krisper and a tandoori Zinger.
Let's taste all of them.
Oh, that's pretty yum.
They've used a different kind of mayonnaise here.
It has a bit of sweetness to it
and a spicy kick at the end.
And now for the legendary Zinger.
Back in the day, there were only two
fast-food chains here in India,
it was McDonald's and KFC.
And while McDonald's had more affordable burger options,
the KFC Zinger was so delicious,
it was always a treat to eat.
Mm. And it still is.
I love that they use a whole
boneless piece of proper chicken in there.
Delicious mayo.
It's so delicious.
OK, now let's try the spicy variants.
This is the spicy Krisper.
Look at this sauce!
It's almost blood-red. I'm excited.
Oh, my God.
This sauce almost has a Szechuan taste to it.
Next up, the Zinger, but tandoori.
Mm. I love the fullness of the chicken
that comes in these burgers
versus, like, a minced chicken patty in other restaurants.
There's so much bite to it.
It's so juicy, tender.
That all sounds amazing.
Stop, you're going too fast!
I have to say, those sandwiches look delicious,
and I am jealous.
One sandwich you can get here in the US,
can't get in India,
is this little guy, the Chicken Little.
Looks to be a chicken tender
in between these tiny little buns.
Pickles, goodbye.
Could probably eat, like, five of those.
Slightly different from what you have in India,
so I'm going to use it as an excuse
to show it off yet again.
Our crispy chicken sandwich.
This thing, the original, the bad boy.
Also with pickles.
Hang on.
Get off of my sandwich.
But it has this really creamy mayo sauce on it, the bun.
I love this.
Yeah.
Other chicken stuff we got here you ain't got.
I'm already getting loopy.
Start over here, Nashville hot tender chicken.
Here, this, I think, is the spiciest thing
you're getting at the KFC menu.
And I'm gonna be straight up, I've had these before,
these are pretty good.
And they're really crispy, Yuelei.
Want to hear that crisp again?
[crunching]
Not sure if it's made it over to India yet.
It is called a chicken pot pie.
It's a pie, but instead of there being, you know,
fruit or any of the sweet stuff you like,
they fill a pie with chicken,
and what do you think else is in here?
Corn, gravy, peas maybe.
I have no idea. I'm not going to rip this thing open.
This thing, it's got some weight to it.
This is a meal right here. This is not a side.
I don't know where it is in the menu, but whew.
This right here, the KFC Famous Bowl.
And it is famous, let me tell you.
Nikhil, if you're wondering what this is,
someone at KFC was like,
"How can we put everything into one bowl?"
And this thing was born.
It is mashed potatoes, corn,
the popcorn chicken,
cheese, and gravy, all in a convenient bowl
for you to eat while you are driving.
It generally does nothing for the flavor.
It's exactly what I would think this would taste like.
It's just a bunch of this stuff in one bowl.
Yes, in India, you can get wings at the KFC,
but at our KFC in the US, you can get your wings sauced.
And we have three different sauces,
honey barbecue, Buffalo, Nashville hot.
Honey barbecue, thumbs down.
This Buffalo's a lot more orange
than I recall Buffalo being.
I cannot quite place my finger
on why suddenly my stomach is killing me.
Do you see inside there?
OK.
[Yuelei laughs]
On to the next wing.
Bring on that food poisoning, baby.
Um, yeah, all these are bad.
All right, moving away from chicken,
India's KFC actually has vegetarian alternatives
for all our burgers.
There is a vegetarian Krisper,
a vegetarian spicy Krisper, and a vegetarian Zinger.
Now, while India has a majority population
of nonvegetarians, around 70%,
there is a huge vegetarian population,
which is why a lot of fast-food restaurants
have to make sure they have a lot of vegetarian options
on their menu to make it more approachable
and acceptable for all people over here.
There's also levels to vegetarianism over here.
There are I-will-eat-egg-but-not-chicken vegetarians.
There are I-will-eat-fish-but-not-lamb vegetarians.
There are I-will-eat-the-curry-
but-not-the-pieces vegetarians.
There are I-am-vegetarian-only-on-Tuesdays vegetarians.
There are I-have-made-a-promise-to-God-
for-this-one-month vegetarians.
There are I-am-vegetarian-
so-you-will-all-be-vegetarian vegetarians.
They're the weird ones, and we try not to talk about them.
Which is why KFC in India brands itself as just KFC.
There's no Kentucky Fried Chicken anywhere here
because, obviously,
I'm not going to go to a place that's named that
if I'm one of these many types of vegetarians.
One iconic dish that you'll find on the KFC India menu
is biryani.
And so KFC India has taken a very bold decision
to launch their own biryanis.
If you don't know what biryani is,
you are living under a gigantic boulder, my friend.
Hey, guess I live under a boulder
because I, unfortunately, am not familiar with biryani,
but I would love to know more about it.
Hello! I am Crystelle Pereira,
and I am a cook and a baker,
and you may know me as a finalist
from "The Great British Bake Off."
This [bell dings] is biryani.
Now, biryani is a typical rice dish you find in South Asia,
and the way you make it is in layers.
My dad is a biryani master at home,
and the way he makes it is with cooked rice,
cooked potatoes, some fried onions, and a curry.
We like to go for a mutton biryani,
but you can get chicken or fish,
and in this case, vegetarian biryani.
We absolutely love it,
and we always eat it as a family unit
with a lovely pot of cooling raita on the side,
which is a lovely cooling yogurt dish
which goes really well with the spicy biryani.
And it's basically our equivalent of a Sunday roast,
because you have it in a big pot and you all take scoops.
And I actually don't think
I've ever eaten biryani by myself for one person.
Now, we have to talk about this KFC biryani,
because for me, biryani is a home dish.
You make it in a home kitchen,
it's cooked by a family member, and it's cooked with love.
My first impression, a KFC biryani,
those two words just don't go together for me.
Just to give you guys context
of what it's like to be Indian and eat a biryani at KFC,
it's like being Italian and eating a pasta at Domino's.
Got it, thank you.
Continue.
They come in four flavors.
No. 1, classic chicken, nice and crispy.
No. 2, popcorn chicken.
No. 3, the spicy red chicken that I really enjoy.
And No. 4, the veg patty,
which, it's so tempting to just push that to the side,
because veg biryani is already just
a concept that we're not a fan of over here.
But just for now, you can stay here.
OK, I'm going to begin with the popcorn chicken biryani,
which is just so blasphemous to begin with.
Mm.
Hm.
It's not a biryani.
It's ...
I'm so upset right now.
This one, the spicy red chicken,
has a bit of that tandoori vibe to it.
They've really tried to overcompensate with the spices.
There's a lot of clove flavor
just to convince you you're eating a biryani, so,
go easy on that curry.
I could eat this, like, if I was hungry.
Not a biryani, though.
That biryani looks real depressing. I am sorry.
But we do have these exclusive side dishes,
which are mashed potatoes,
I can't believe you guys don't have mashed potatoes.
It feels like this is flagship stuff here.
Macaroni and cheese.
Biscuits. Again, no biscuits?
Coleslaw.
This giant dish of just gravy,
and, of course, sweet corn.
New country, new sauces, y'all know what that means.
Sauce talk.
First one, I mean, the KFC sauce.
Why this isn't at every KFC internationally, I have no idea.
Get a load of that sauce right there.
I think it's, like, ketchup and mayo, but it's really good.
Honey barbecue.
I know what that tastes like.
Honey mustard.
That's not your thing?
Honey.
And, of course, you got classic ranch.
Not much of a ranch aficionado, but theirs is just OK.
And, oh, I forgot about their hot sauce, Yuelei.
India does not have too many exclusive dips.
In fact, we just have a veg eggless mayonnaise
and a tandoori masala mayonnaise.
It's time to taste.
I'm using the same hand, because here in India,
we don't eat with our left hand.
If you're wondering why,
commenters, you let them know.
"Why don't Indians
eat with their left hand?"
Well, it's just mayonnaise, so good job on that.
Mayonnaise again,
with a little bit of a sweet but also spicy kick to it.
I wish we had more options,
especially considering there are so many
different delicious chicken options.
I'd love to be able to dip my tenders in more sauces.
That is a weird sentence.
For those of you with a sweet tooth,
we have two exclusive dessert options.
Chocolate chip cookie
and this chocolate chip cake.
How good does this look?
Here in India, we have two exclusive desserts.
A choco mud pie and a coffee mousse cake.
Ooh, boy!
Just look at this cross section, my friend.
Next up, coffee mousse cake.
Yeah,
these are pretty average as desserts.
Drinks, drinks,
drinks!
Maybe my favorite part of the exclusives section.
Exclusive drinks you can get in the US
you cannot get in India.
Mountain Dew.
I'm back, baby. Mm.
And if you're a Mountain Dew fan, such as me,
you know KFC has got the exclusive
Mountain Dew Sweet Lightning.
So, Mountain Dew Sweet lightning is like peach Mountain Dew,
and it's really good.
It's really good. Mm!
Think this is a lemonade, the US-style lemonade,
not that weird UK Sprite lemonade.
Oh, so good.
From there, you can also get Sierra Mist.
[sighs]
Ugh, ugh!
And, of course, sweet tea.
Whoa, that's, like, really sweet.
Oh, that's really good.
Exclusive drinks in KFC India.
We have Mirinda, which is an orange soda,
and Red Bull.
Let's talk about Mirinda.
This is a drink that really evokes nostalgia.
'90s kids will know what I'm talking about when I say,
"Mirindaaaaa."
Which country is getting the better deal on its KFC?
Let's compare a few menu items to find out.
Both countries offer eight-piece chicken bucket.
Here in LA, one of these goes for $19.99.
If you order an eight-piece chicken bucket
here at KFC India,
it will cost you 699.05 rupees,
very specific,
which is currently 9.15 US dollars.
That makes the American eight-piece bucket
118% more expensive than the one in India.
Does making your meal a combo help the US price out at all?
Take this chicken-sandwich combo, with fries and a drink.
It will set you back, in America, $9.99.
The Indian equivalent is a Zinger meal,
where you can get a chicken sandwich, some medium fries,
and a drink for 319.05 rupees,
or 4.18 US dollars.
In fact, the price difference is so great,
you can get something called the Ultimate Savings Bucket
for just 599 rupees, or $7.88.
And this contains four pieces of hot and crispy chicken,
six hot wings, four boneless strips,
three drinks, and three dips. Yeesh.
In fact, you can throw in a choco mud pie as a dessert
and still get all of this for much cheaper
than the American combo meal.
But is it really that cheap here in India?
No, because two-thirds of India
is still under the poverty line,
and for them, this meal is still very aspirational.
They earn less than $2 a day.
Sorry to be a downer,
but this is still a meal that is only available
to the really privileged here in India.
Unfortunately, KFC does not share a full list
of ingredients with the public.
It's actually the same in the US.
All KFC shares with the public is a list of allergens.
So, what do we know about KFC?
Well, the KFC India website has a couple of clues.
We know that all of our chicken is farmed here
and not imported,
and all of it is 100% whole muscle chicken.
That means it's made from whole pieces of chicken
and not cut-together minced chicken,
like you find in chicken nuggets.
In fact, the website says they have an open-kitchen policy,
and what that means is anybody can walk into a KFC
and apparently ask for a kitchen tour.
And you can go into the kitchen, look at everything,
and ask as many questions as you want.
I have never heard of that in my entire life,
an open-kitchen policy.
I've worked in several kitchens,
and I'll tell you straight up,
if I was in a kitchen working and some dude walks in
and is like, "Hey, can I get a tour of the kitchen?"
I'd be like, "Yeah, here's your tour. There's the exit."
Definitely can't do that in the United States.
Don't go into a KFC chicken and demand a tour.
The KFC US website also gives us some hints
about the ingredients it uses over here.
For instance, all of our chicken is raised on US farms
to the USDA and FDA's standards.
So that means there are no added hormones
or steroids in American KFC chicken.
In addition to this, as of 2019,
Yum Brands, the parent company of KFC,
stopped purchasing chicken raised using antibiotics.
Indian chicken farmers were previously criticized
for overusing antibiotics.
As recently as 2018, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
found out that a lot of Indian farmers were feeding colistin
to their chickens as a growth promoter
without any medical supervision.
Colistin is known as the antibiotic of the last resort.
Holy f---.
Oh, my God, that's so frightening!
And it's only given to humans
when other antibiotics have failed.
So if we give our chickens colistin,
then the humans who consume it might become resistant to it.
In fact, they can develop a antibiotic-resistant superbug,
and that's not good.
Yuelei, this sounds like the plot to a horror movie.
What is he talking about?
That is terrifying.
I'm gonna assume we don't do that here?
And if we do, oh, God.
But when a report came out
talking about the ill effects of colistin,
India ended up banning it completely,
so we're safe from colistin, at last.
We should also point out that the KFC India website
is in major need of an update.
There is an FAQ page where people have asked things like,
"How many calories does this chicken have?"
Or, "Sometimes I see red deposits in my chicken.
What is it?"
And for almost all of these questions,
the answers are just filler text.
So if you ask me what those red deposits are,
I genuinely don't know.
That's interesting. Let's take a look
at this website right now.
Ahem. "Is KFC providing healthcare to their employees?"
KFC responds,
"standard dummy text ever since the 1500s,
when an unknown printer took a gallery of type
and scrambled it to make a type specimen book."
"What is KFC doing for the safety of their staff?"
"Lorem ipsum is a simple dummy text
of the printing and typesetting industry."
Yeah, they gotta update their site.
That's pretty funny.