hello everyone this is running on empty food review well hello ladies gentlemen and
everyone watching welcome one and also this newest edition of the running on empty food review series
i'm your host the report of the week thanks for checking in
it's been a while since i tried out panera bread but uh i thought why not what the heck i mean uh i
think it's been over a year but i i do frequent panera bread at least at least fairly often
uh i know that they might not be like the quintessential fast food place like mcdonald's
or something like that but they have a new item out that's getting a little bit of talk i thought
it was interesting and i thought ah what the heck let's try it out i'm personally curious
so one thing that refuses to die a trend that is are the chicken sandwiches you know you still
have the chicken sandwich craze you still have all these places out there releasing different
chicken sandwiches and it amazes me because uh you know these sorts of trends are usually short-lived
it's like i remember the chicken sandwich thing obviously they would always be popular but the
chicken sandwiches by and large became very popular back in 2019 and uh as a trend it's
it's still here every place is still doing this panera bread finally said we're going to do the
chicken sandwiches now but we're going to do a mite we're going to do them the right way
so they've released a series of chicken sandwiches i suppose to try to compete with the other places
they've released original chicken sandwiches spicy chicken sandwiches
i thought you know i've got a blue suit and a kind of blue tie on today
so i'm going to harness the blue in my outfit to hopefully provide natural cooling powers
and i'm going to go ahead with the spicy chicken sandwich from panera bread so that's exactly what
i've got right here so today's review is going to be for the they call it the panera bread
spicy take chicken sandwich so you know you can you're familiar with the uh
phrase oh that was a good take you know if someone gives like a an opinion that's
disagreeable some people might say oh that was a bad take right there it was a bad take
they got the spicy take so they're saying this is our our spicy take on the chicken sandwich craze
i know that's out there that that's really out there so here's what it is what you know what what
constitutes a spicy take you might be wondering obviously so here's what it is you have a
let's see a seared chicken breast it looks like yeah yeah seared chicken breast
spicy buffalo sauce crispy pickle chips garlic aioli and it's on a brioche
roll so again you've got the seasoned and seared chicken breast you've got the buffalo sauce on
it that's where the spice that's the spicy take uh then you've got the pickled chips garlic aioli and
again it's on a brioche roll i it is pricey though all things considered for a chicken sandwich
you got to be ready to pay at least 13 bucks for it so bear that in mind now
this signifies right here a 13 sandwich because they said look
we're giving you premium it's not just some flimsy pouch it comes in a cardboard box
so right there all right that's it i'm going to get a quick thumbnail right here like this
what does this even say bursting with flavor
and you could see that little splash that's the flavor bursting out it's bursting at the seams
so that's just the thumbnail in case people want to see the branding
um over here they advertise different sandwiches that they've got
they say that they have the original take no the signature take the spicy take that's about it
now let's open it up all right here comes the big reveal
they call that the sandwich domicile
here we go that's the spicy take there it is so you ever wanted to know what a spicy take is
that's what it looks like right there and you're going to see spicy drippage
probably in a second but there's the chicken breast with spicy take
and the garlic aioli mixed in we've got the pickles
and all that good stuff so again i'm going to get a thumbnail like this
if it drips what does it matter i'll clean it up no big deal
i just want you to get a good look at it that's all
pretty straightforward stuff i'll lay down
some napkins and i don't have to worry all right you know what's on it i know what's
on it we all know what's on it so i'm going to eat it and then that's going to be that
the spicy take chicken sandwich from panera bread let's see how this tastes that's going in
do you know why they uh call this sandwich the spicy take
because they say it's a spicy take
all right i'm going to take one more bite
there's a cross section
now
the final note i'll just show you this there's the top bun
there's the chicken
right there
there's the bottom bun
all right so here's what i have to say about it all in all not a bad sandwich you know i don't
have any complaints um in terms of the way it tastes i was a little concerned at first
about the addition of the garlic aioli um
i just wasn't sure how that was really going to work with the chicken sandwich and if it
was going to balance things out or if it was just going to be weird but it actually works
it complements it nicely it ties it actually ties everything together and the garlic is uh
it's it's not overwhelming it's actually rather mild and a very pleasant accompaniment if i may
quality of the chicken is decent um the first bite i was mostly just getting like a little bit of the
kind of crispier edge of the uh the chicken fillet but then after the the first bite the
succeeding bites showed that the chicken breast was indeed as tender it was juicy it was flavorful
not burned in the least so quite good there in terms of quality panera bread usually does a
solid job and usually you get pretty fresh decent quality stuff and the sandwich is no exception
there it's a decent quality chicken and no issues in that regard at all like i was saying about the
garlic aioli it's all right it doesn't cause any problems the bun is fine the crispy pickle
chips are actually quite good everyone pairs the chicken sandwiches with the pickles and these
do a good job a nice crispy crunch a little bit of tanginess therein they're nice i like
the crispy pickle chips that's a good addition good quality fresh stuff so that's good to see
so if there's anything else to talk about it's obviously the spice and i'm kind of saving that
for last because this is my last point the sauce itself in that first few bites that i showed you
um you could obviously see that the sauce was almost dripping off the sandwich and you know
it looked like all right this is going to be solid this is going to have some real good stuff there
so i was taking a few bites and you know at first i could really taste the buffalo sauce it's a
standard buffalo sauce not um incredibly spicy a little runny um but you know it it immediately
took effect i could definitely taste the spice it doesn't have much of an aftertaste though so it's
like once you either wash it down with a little bit of water or go into the next bite um its
effects are going to rapidly diminish but there is definitely a little bit of spice in that sauce
when i showed you though both the cross section of the sandwich and when i disassembled it
what did you notice and you know you could just go back into the video look at when i showed you that
but did you notice something compared to when i deconstructed the sandwich as opposed to what i
showed you when i took the first bite and if you were thinking absence of buffalo sauce you're
absolutely right it looked like all the buffalo sauce on the sandwich was almost concentrated on
that part where i first bit in and if that amount of sauce was uniform throughout this would be a
darn good sandwich but the problem is at those first like two or three bites this is what i
was hoping for and expecting for like a buffalo chicken sandwich but after that the sauce again
it isn't very potent to begin with and then as you look like again at the top bun i'll show you
what do you see you see more and more of the white garlic aioli you know same thing there
so then you begin to lose the spiciness as you keep as you continue to eat the sandwich more and
it becomes more of kind of like a mild garlicky chicken sandwich as opposed to a spicy buffalo
chicken sandwich and that's not what they were going for they wanted this to be the spicy take
and so here's what i'm saying it doesn't have enough buffalo sauce if it had that amount of
sauce uniformly throughout like what i had on the first bite we'd be talking a good sandwich but
again the problem is that the distribution was off it was only in that corner and then as you keep
eating it the spice diminishes and diminishes until you could almost barely register it
so that's a problem now it's not a major problem because all the ingredients all the components
taste just fine but again the issue that i have is that there needs to be more sauce
now good news i would advise if you could order this sandwich you know go for it again it's a
little pricey it's a 13 sandwich and i think it's overpriced quite frankly but uh it is what it is
um but if you order this i would advise saying extra buffalo sauce extra spicy buffalo sauce
and then i think you'll get that as intended experience um when it comes down to uh consuming
and enjoying the sandwich so if it's got more sauce on it it's gonna be nice it's gonna be
that spicy take you're looking for but what i got here it's it's good it's got a lot of potential
but it needs more of that sauce so bear that in mind so therefore taking all that into account
the main issue again lack of sauce that's something that you could easily fix on your end
and i advise you too should you take this approach so that's my problem but it's an easily fixable
one uh taking into account the price the lack of sauce but the overall flavor um i'm going to give
the spicy take chicken sandwich from panera bread a 6.8 out of 10 slightly above average
but a few minor adjustments could definitely take it to that next level and that's all that i have
for you thank you for watching today's review i'm your host the report of the week until next time