India! You guys love KFC.
But what you might not realize is that it tastes nothing like the original and the authentic
KFC flavors that you get overseas.
When I got here to India and I tried KFC for the first time,
I was so shocked at how different it was.
So I'm here in Delhi
And here at KFC in the very windy, not so warm, not so sunny country of New Zealand, my home town.
So let's go in, get some chicken and chips and I'll show you what the differences are.
KFC actually launched here in 1995.
But it failed because at that time, there was a big anti-Western and anti-KFC movement happening.
And it was so bad that KFC had to have a police car outside their only store in Bangalore.
So then it relaunched 9 years later and now it's been growing ever since.
And they have around 300 stores here in India.
Now there are a few major differences you will notice when you enter KFC here in India.
So first off, all the meat is halal and they don't serve any pork.
So no bacon in your Double Down.
And that's why Muslims can eat here as well.
And then they have a large population of vegetarians here in India.
So they have an extensive vegetarian menu.
And one other thing they have here are rice bowls.
And it's kind of like biryani with kind of popcorn chicken on top.
Those are really good and they are super cheap as well.
KFC is famous for this: their fried chicken.
So let's start here.
And the first thing you notice is that the coating is different here in India.
It's more like a really really crunchy tempura batter.
Like almost like it is complex and it's that crunchy.
So the chicken here overseas in New Zealand,
it is just skin coated in flour and eleven secret herbs and spices.
There's no kind of crispy tempura batter or anything else added to it.
It's just chicken skin and spices.
So yeah. It looks totally different to the chicken there in India with their really crispy tempura batter.
And you can actually see the spices on this chicken.
Let's taste it now.
So the taste of this is totally different here in India.
It just has like chilli and kind of salt on it.
That's all it tastes like.
It just tastes like chilli, like..
Basically hot and spicy fried chicken.
And you can actually see the chilli in it, the amount of chilli they put in it right there.
See that little layer of kind of chilli that's on top of the skin?
And then you've got that kind of a tempura batter on top.
So the spices are totally totally different here.
In India, they're not using the Colonel's secret 11 herbs and spices like we get overseas.
They've got their own Indian version of KFC.
And you can actually see the lack of spices in the coating of this chicken.
There isn't really any spices on top of it.
So you can clearly see the herbs and spices on this.
And the flavor is so much more complex than the KFC India chicken.
It's not just the chilli bomb.
You have a ton of flavors working when you bite into this.
And it's amazing. It's great. I love it.
And there's barely any chilli flavor, if any, in this actually.
Now the quality of the meat they're using is quite different as well.
You get a lot of this kind of brown meat in India
rather than like fleshy white meat.
And it's not just.. it's just not as meaty as I'm used to eating in KFC.
There's less meat and..
the quality seems a lot worse and this weird brown meat. I don't know what it is.
And the issue is that quality meat production just isn't here in India
because so many people are vegetarians.
They're not experts in, you know, raising good quality meat.
Now to the quality of the chicken here in New Zealand.
And it is just unbeatable.
You can't beat New Zealand for meat.
We're famous for it and it's super white fleshy meat.
There's no kind of brown bits or you know banes or anything else kind of gross in there.
It's just white chicken.
And as for price, for 5 pieces, it is 8 dollars New Zealand.
For one piece, two dollars New Zealand.
One piece chicken in New Zealand is 3 dollars 60.
Or 5 pieces for 14 dollars.
That's quite a lot more than India. Around 40% more costly.
India wins on the cost but you're getting a lower quality product
because, you know, it's so cheap there.
Here you're getting a much higher quality product but you're paying for it.
You know it's that old saying, "you get what you pay for".
Alright. Now on to the famous KFC fries. At least overseas.
And so you'll see these are shoestring fries they're selling here in India.
And there's almost no salt or chicken salt on them.
Let's try. Let me confirm.
They don't have the chicken salt on them like we do overseas.
And that's just another issue with vegetarians here.
They don't wanna put the chicken salt on because it's gonna upset the vegetarians.
So they just leave them bland and really terrible fries here.
The big difference with the fries here is that they're covered in chicken salt.
It's really really delicious. These aren't just covered in salt.
And they're thicker than the shoestring fries that is served in India.
And I'm guessing they don't put chicken salt on the fries in India
because it's an issue for vegetarians.
They probably can't eat chicken covered chips.
And one of the quirk here in India is you notice that Indians will put tomato sauce on their pieces of chicken.
For us, it's just on the chips. But here, they'll even put it on the chicken.
They put it on anything here actually.
That's not so different from New Zealand actually. We're famous in New Zealand for putting tomato sauce on anything.
Even inside two pieces of bread as a sandwich.
So yeah. Maybe Indians are more similar to Kiwis than we actually know.
So I'm not a fan of KFC here in India.
They need to fix their flavors and their quality.
But I think it's just that they've made KFC to cater to Indian taste buds.
And by that, they have just made fried chicken into a chilli bomb.
It just tastes like chilli,
which is a bit sad because the original, the secret herbs and spices,
the original KFC recipe is so tasty
and so much more complex than just a chilli bomb that you get here.
Anyway, I'd rather be eating at somewhere like Bikanerwala or Haldiram's.
Somewhere more desi (locally Indian) than KFC.
Actually let's go ask my wife.
She's an Indian citizen and she's tried KFC in both countries.
So after all of this, what I realize is that KFC India is just selling a hot and spicy version of KFC.
And sometimes, we get that hot and spicy version here.
They do it as like a special every few months here.
But yeah. They're definitely not selling the Colonel's famous secret recipe
fried chicken which most of us around the world know as KFC chicken.
And it's totally different in India.
And part of it is what you prefer though.
So if you've lived in India all your life and you've grown up eating hot and spicy,
you associate hot and spicy with KFC here.
I associate KFC with the secret recipe chicken.
And I just can't get over how different it is in India when you go in and all you can order is hot and spicy.
It is just so different.
So maybe one day, KFC in India could actually try and you know introduce
the authentic secret recipe chicken and you know, see if Indians like it or not.