Hello everyone, this is Running on Empty...
...Food Review!
Boy, am I hungry!
It's time to refuel.
Another Food Review. This one for a new release from Sonic.
And this is one of those releases...
You know... Think of it like a like a comet almost.
Where it'll make its rounds and it'll pass around
and everyone will make a big deal out of it and then it'll go away.
And then a couple years later, it'll come back and everyone will make a big deal out of it.
Then it'll go away again.
This is one of those items.
Or it'll make its little seasonal, you know, round trip, so to speak.
Crispy Chicken Tenders from Sonic.
It's one of those things when I saw that they were actually releasing these,
I thought to myself, "Wait a minute, I thought they had these already."
You know, I think it's one of those things, with all due respect.
I think we expect a place like Sonic, you know,
where they have their burgers; they have popcorn chicken; they have chicken wings...
You would just kind of expect there would be chicken strips,
and that there would be kind of like an evergreen item on the menu.
But surprisingly they're not.
They have them. They bring them back and they pull them away. Then they bring them back again.
And then they just pull them out of the customers gaping maw,
and then they bring them back and you know,
I guess they try to do it like a marketing thing. But anyway.
So they got the Crispy Chicken Strips back.
They have a Chicken Strip Dinner.
They have a three piece and then a five piece. I got the five piece.
And the big... I guess, to just get that hype up, you know,
and get everyone to be posting about it on social media,
taking those Instagram selfies with it, you know,
make it a huge trend as they're releasing it with Signature Sauce, right?
Nothing gets you excited like Signature Sauce from Sonic.
It just has that level of mystery in there.
You're just sitting there. You're scratching your head. You're thinking,
"Wow. I wonder what this Signature Sauce tastes like, you know."
Something like that. It's one of the mysteries of the universe.
But anyway.
There's a Signature Sauce right there.
And here is a bag of Crispy Chicken Tenders.
I would have expected these to come in like a little box,
but they come in a bag, you know, that's alright, whatever works.
You know, whatever keeps them...
...keeps them situated I guess.
But you can see... there you are, kind of peeking in,
and it's almost like a little cave
where the chicken tenders are kind of, you know, resting and they're safe, you know.
They're nice and safe in there.
Anyway, this is what they look like.
They're not Incredibly huge, you know, you can see right there.
That's what it looks like. Nice close-up view.
Yeah, it's pretty small. It's like a small little, you know, chicken tender.
It's not like it's a huge, you know, chicken strip or anything.
But the rest of them are about the same...
The same size like this one.
You know, they're all about the same size. They have some thickness.
They don't seem to be like incredibly crispy or anything.
I'm gonna get a tissue here... napkin.
Doesn't seem to be like incredibly crispy,
but as long as they taste good I guess.
And we'll see how the signature sauce goes with it.
So otherwise, you know, there's nothing really to it.
They're just Crispy Chicken Tenders and they come with a sauce accompaniment
so they're pretty self-explanatory.
You know, it's not like there's any hidden tricks this time around—at least there shouldn't be.
And we'll just take a bite; we'll try it; I'll let you know what it tastes like,
then we'll just go into the sauce and we'll see how well that goes.
So it's the newly released Crispy Chicken Tenders from Sonic, going in.
We'll get into this in a minute.
The Realm of Chicken Strips...
...at times can be a turbulent place.
Because...
...it's something a lot of people don't realize.
It's something that is divided up into a lot of different factions.
Well, you know, sometimes it's hard to please everyone.
Where you have people who will get chicken strips.
And they'll say, "I want it crunchy.
I want it crispy. I want it so crunchy as a matter of fact,
when I bite into this chicken strip,
I want my teeth to shatter.
I don't care about the pain.
I don't care about how much it might ruin my mouth,
or destroy my teeth. I want them ruined.
I want it to be like I'm biting into a block of cement.
I want it that crunchy."
And you get people that are like that: when they want,
you know, they want their chicken tenders so crispy,
it'll just destroy every tooth in their mouth.
Now you'll get other people that will say, "Well I want it soft but flavorful."
And then you get people who will sometimes say, "Well I don't care.
Just cook it as long or as short as you want, and I don't want any flavor whatsoever.
You just give me a stick of matter or whatever and that'll work out just fine.
And more often than not, that's what happens for a lot of places.
They tend to like to...
You know, to cater to that faction there.
And you see that a lot of the time with certain chicken strips—these ones included.
Yeah, sometimes you'll get lucky and you could bite into a chicken strip,
and you don't even have to worry about sauce.
You know, it's just got certain, you know,
seasonings and flavor that's baked into the breading there and it's just really flavorful.
And you're saying, "Wow, you know, I didn't expect that.
I've had this sauce ready, and you know, I don't even need it.
It's something that might work well, but I don't need this sauce."
Unfortunately, these aren't like that.
You bite into the chicken strips.
They're not really that crunchy.
They're not really that crispy,
nor are they really that flavorful, with all due respect.
I sometimes think that places will intentionally make them this way,
just so that you will have to utilize the sauce,
and it will be something try to promote their sauces with.
And I think this is one of those things, you know,
it reminds me of the old chicken selects from McDonald's.
They'll have... you know, they all look alright.
But you'll bite in, it'll be pretty breaded
while not be incredibly crunchy or crispy,
but it's kind of lacking in terms of flavor.
You know, it's like the chicken is teeming with drupes or anything.
It's not like it's incredibly flavorful in that regard.
It's not there's any spices or any special coating or breading on it.
So to me, these chicken tenders are just similar to that where they're just lacking a bit of flavor.
But the end is not here.
Thankfully...
we have plenty of these.
And we got one of these too. Their Signature Sauce.
This is what they're really promoting with it.
I could understand why they didn't make them that flavourful,
though I really wish they were more flavorful anyway.
But they're really marketing the sauce to go along with it,
so we're gonna try it out and we'll see how well it goes.
So we'll try it out.
So there's this Signature Sauce.
You can see right there.
Yeah, there it is.
Kind of like a...
Like an orange... maybe like a caramel color.
Smells kind of like mustard.
And we'll just try it out. So I'm going to dip this in their Signature Sauce.
It's a very thick sauce, I'll tell you that.
You can see there's a perfect view we're all dying for
of the chicken tender coated in Signature Sauce from Sonic.
Try it out and I'll let you know what it tastes like.
Hmm.
Well that's disgusting.
I don't know what they were expecting to do with this.
I mean I'm puzzled.
I don't know.
You ever get a sauce...
And this is just something that I really... I don't see very often.
Like most of the time when they get a sauce,
it's you know, it's pretty straightforward. Anyplace really.
Ketchup, mustard, barbecue, honey barbecue...
...sweet-and-sour...
It's just very straightforward and it works most of the time.
This was just... it's a really weird combination and I can't say it works at all.
Imagine this. This is what the sauce tastes like. I'll let you decide.
Alright. Get a bunch of mustard.
Then dump a bit of ketchup in there
and kind of maybe stir it up with like a pencil eraser or something, you know.
And then just dump a whole ton of corn syrup in there.
You know, just a lot of sugar—not the good kind— just a lot of artificial sweeteners and corn syrup and all that.
And just mix it together and just hope it works.
maybe I put it on some chicken too.
Yeah, that'll work, right?
It doesn't.
It is very conflicting flavors.
They don't work.
Like it would be one thing if it's like a...
...a sweet and sour sauce—well executed—but it's not.
it's just...
The ketchup and mustard while sometimes they can go together in this case...
They're very very clearly separate.
It doesn't really go well at all.
And then you have this very misplaced sweetness that just...
It seems like it would just be better off probably without the ketchup quite frankly.
Because it's just... when it's all mixed together,
it's just three flavors that weren't really put together very well.
They clash, they don't go well at all, and while it kind of gives the chicken...
you know, some moisture and some flavor and...
It just doesn't work well at all. That's all I have to say there.
I don't know what they were trying to do with this and call it a Signature Sauce.
But it didn't work. With all due respect, it didn't work.
If there's one sauce that I would recommend trying with these chicken tenders,
I think would go get like maybe a Honey Mustard Sauce,
or maybe if they have it like a Sweet And Sour Sauce.
I think that would go very well with chicken tenders,
because these tenders are something that you know, they're kind of meant to be accompanied by sauce.
Unfortunately their Signature Sauce here just does not work at all.
It's a disgusting combination.
It clashes with itself even when there's nothing there.
It doesn't go with the chicken at all.
I would not recommend it.
Because all that it does is it takes...
...some dry, pretty flavorless chicken and just makes it taste really weird.
If you want to get these chicken tenders and they weren't the cheapest either.
These are like $5.79 for a five piece.
If you really want to get these for some reason if they're like haunting you in your dreams,
and you're just having these nocturnal visions of chicken tenders
that just won't leave you alone until you go buy these.
You can get them,
but don't get them with the Signature Sauce.
Get them with maybe some mustard, some honey mustard.
The Signature Sauce doesn't taste good. It doesn't work well.
Honestly, I think these chicken tenders could be a lot better.
I think they should be more flavorful, have a better sauce accompaniment,
and overall, they're a little expensive too so I'm a bit...
I'm disappointed quite frankly.
So therefore out of ten I'm gonna be giving these chicken tenders a 5.0 out of 10.
Because I'm just disappointed. I think they just could taste better,
the sauce could be better the price could be better.
Overall lots of room for improvement.
But it's not at the point of an overturn. They can salvage these, make them good,
and that's what I'm hoping to see going forward.
So thank you for watching this review,
I'm your host, The Report Of The Week.
Today we tried out the new Chicken Tenders from Sonic.
Thank you for watching and hey, hoping for better going forward. That's all that I have.
Take care, and I'll see you in a couple days with another review.
That's all.