Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits

have you guys tried popeye's chicken and biscuits? i dropped by singapore last weekend n i took a ride on the singapore flyer. had popeye's chicken for dinner and it rocked!

Popeye's is a popular fried Chicken chain in the mid-west and south. There are a number of threads with comments about it and how it compares to other FF fried chicken on this forum.

Singapore? SINGAPORE?? You traveled thousands of miles across the Pacific to Singapore and YOU ATE AT AN AMERICAN FAST FOOD CHAIN ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Hey, they don't have Popeye's in LA, do they? How far do folks in California have to travel for some Popeye's? I would just make the trip to N.O. though.
Joe

quote:

Originally posted by PapaJoe8

Hey, they don't have Popeye's in LA, do they? How far do folks in California have to travel for some Popeye's? I would just make the trip to N.O. though.
Joe

Popeyes has more than 1,800 restaurants in the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam and 25 foreign countries. I think LA qualifies as a "Foreign Country" so I'm sure they have a shop there!!!

I travel a lot and I have noticed that the Pilot Travel Centers have a lot of their centers offering Popeye's chicken and catfish. A very good travel snack.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Foodb, I was not sure if there was a Popeye's in LA. From what you said I guess odds are there might be.

Yes Paul, not a bad travel snack. My problem is always what to order. I like all their stuff including the shrimp they all have here.
Joe

Lot's of Popeye's in LA.

Wish their chicken pieces were bigger.

Love their red beans and rice, even though they squeeze it out of a plastic bag!

In the mid-90's a Texaco convenience store and combo-FF store opened across the street from the In n Out at the Main st (Hesperia,CA) exit of I-15. It featured A&W burgers and Popeyes chicken. I figured the local In n Out business would bury the new store in no time...but it is still there (or was a couple of years ago when we passed thru the area.

Popeye's Spicy Chicken is the top of my list for FF (non-burger) choices. We often travel with a box when we know we won't find a good roadfood sit-down place, or don't want to stop for a meal. Popeye's and Jack-in-the-Box Tacos get my vote for 'stop n go' food! (In more ways than one !!!)

Here in Indiana the local Popeye's is right next door to a Sonic. We pick up our Spicy Chicken then run thru the Sonic Drive-thru to get the Cherry-Limeades and off we go!

The Popeye's in DC are filthy. I wouldn't go anywhere near them.
Can't speak of their quality elsewhere, as I've never been to one outside of DC after my DC experience.

Have to weigh in here.

I've been eating Popeye's since I was a little boy (30+ years). It was SUCH a treat when I was a kid. But the quality and quantity have definately gone downhill over the past few years.

The portion size is horrible in the several locations around my neighborhood (south Louisiana). I've eaten larger Cornish hens. Spicy is nowhere near what it used to be. I can barely see the red pepper/paprika mixture under the crust anymore. The chicken is often cold too.

The sides are also on the wrong track. I used to love the "cajun rice" and red beans. The portions have shrunk, and the taste just isn't the same.

I think Popeye's started to go downhill when they began expanding so far out of the south and adding so many new items to their menu. I wish they'd have stuck to chicken and bisquits.

I wish I was basing this on only one location, but as a fried chicken loving family we have tried five or six different locations over the past few years and the trend can be seen in all of them.

cy

Sorry to hear that Score. The ones near me are real clean. You can see the whole kitchen from the counter. The national Popeye's folks should know about this! And, you would think the local health folks would do something.
Joe

quote:

Originally posted by DavidEMartin

Singapore? SINGAPORE?? You traveled thousands of miles across the Pacific to Singapore and YOU ATE AT AN AMERICAN FAST FOOD CHAIN ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

He said he just dropped by.LOL.

All this got me thinking of a skit on Letterman a few years ago where Dave would make some sort of mention of Popeye's chicken, and then Alan Kalter (the announcer) would say, "Popeye's new full flavored green beans -- delightfully tasty! Now back to you, Dave."

I thought it was funny until I actually went into a Popeye's and didn't find green beans, just some pretty good chicken. Maybe not quite as flavorful as KFC (still the best fast food chicken out there IMO), but better than that cold greasy crap they serve at the grocery store deli.

The cleanliness of Popeye's in Baltimore varies from place to place.

In fact, most fast food varies from place to place with the exception of Chik-Fil-A's, which are always clean.

Singapore must have the world's greatest street food. I refuse to believe that anybody would go there and eat American fast food.
BTW, unless you live in Singapore, you don't "drop by" singapore.

PP-
Tony Bourdain's "No Reservations" did a show in Singapore last season. I have watched it a couple of times on reruns. I must admit I don't like the looks of a lot of the "third world" urban street food on many of these programs....but the stuff He was eating at a number of different locations was really good looking! I think I could survive a few evenings on the streets of Singapore!

I saw that episode of No Reservations, and it inspired me to make Singapore Chicken Rice.

Ehhh, it was okay. The boiling chicken that is doused with ice water and then covered in oil did produce a tender chicken, but overall the flavor of the dish was on so-so. Of course, I would certainly try the real deal, and it would probably be a lot better than my take.

quote:

Originally posted by PapaJoe8

Sorry to hear that Score. The ones near me are real clean. You can see the whole kitchen from the counter. The national Popeye's folks should know about this! And, you would think the local health folks would do something.
Joe

they're old, and have limited dining areas and the dining areaa are often filthy. They don't get out and clean tables enough, empty garbage fast enough, and sweep/mop the floor enough. God knows what's going on in the kitchen. One is a take out only location, with bullet proof glass separating patron from worker. It appears they rarely clean the customer ordering area.

The food was akin to cy_dugas' description, IMO.
I'm not so passionate about fried chicken franchises to actually sit down and write a letter of disapproval.

Popyes cleanleness dos vary, how about Bojangles I thought they a little better taste but don't see them in the west
Clay

quote:

Originally posted by Clay Bell

Popyes cleanleness dos vary, how about Bojangles I thought they a little better taste but don't see them in the west
Clay

In our part of Tennessee we have Bojangles but no Popeye's. Our Bojangles has a Cajun style or Southern style so I had assumed both chains were similar. We stopped at a Bojangles in North Carolina a couple of months ago and they had dropped the Cajun style,

quote:

Originally posted by Al-The Mayor-Bowen

PP-
Tony Bourdain's "No Reservations" did a show in Singapore last season. I have watched it a couple of times on reruns. I must admit I don't like the looks of a lot of the "third world" urban street food on many of these programs....but the stuff He was eating at a number of different locations was really good looking! I think I could survive a few evenings on the streets of Singapore!

Honorable Mayor,
You don't think the Travel Channel is going to let Tony eat in some joint that will be his demise do you? While he's eating "Street Food" I'm sure it got the Travel Channel "Seal of Approval". Several Travel Channel flunky food tasters may have contracted the trots in the process but that's Show Biz! P.S. I love the shows. His commentary on the world is interesting and I wish I had the chance to walk in his moccasins.
P.S. IMHO I think the Travel Channel Food Segments are far more interesting than the Food Network. How many freakin cakes do we need to see and how many psuedo-reality "Kill the Competition Cook Shows" are enough??? Suddenly, Home Improvement reruns are becoming more interesting!If it wasn't for Guy's D-D-D Show and some occasional cleavage from "The Girls" I wouldn't watch FN at all! ( And I was a Food Network Junkie. Just ask my wife)

Food...
You must have missed the Namibia "No Reservations" show. He described with a lot of hesitation the making of pig intestine that was quite full of the material that would have been dropped by the pig shortly, had it not been killed before it could 'Poop'. The intestine was tossed into the coals of the fire and then cut into bite-sized pieces for all...including Tony , to enjoy. In the same segment they made an omelet by breaking an Ostrich egg onto the hot ground...no insulation of any type...then let it cook and they ate it directly off the ground, dirt, ashes, and etc. Tony was encouraged to join in the feast...He Did ! So if the Travel Channel uses any 'guidelines' they must be pretty loose !!

He was clearly not enjoying the Namibia show. Usually, Bourdain makes all over the 3rd world destinations, while he is more critical/sarcastic of the western sites. While he didn't treat Namibia the way he would treat say New Jersey, he wasn't fawning all over it either like he did for Ghana.

Yeah he did look a bit miffed about some of the Namibian scenes. I have a Czech cousin who 'escaped' from Prague with his family in 1968, who lived and worked for 10 years in Namibia before making their way to the USA. They don't have a lot of nice things to say about the place either.

quote:

Originally posted by Al-The Mayor-Bowen

Food...
You must have missed the Namibia "No Reservations" show. He described with a lot of hesitation the making of pig intestine that was quite full of the material that would have been dropped by the pig shortly, had it not been killed before it could 'Poop'. The intestine was tossed into the coals of the fire and then cut into bite-sized pieces for all...including Tony , to enjoy. In the same segment they made an omelet by breaking an Ostrich egg onto the hot ground...no insulation of any type...then let it cook and they ate it directly off the ground, dirt, ashes, and etc. Tony was encouraged to join in the feast...He Did ! So if the Travel Channel uses any 'guidelines' they must be pretty loose !!

Yep! I missed those segments, thank goodness! I was thinking more along the lines of 3rd World Countries, not 4th or 5th World Countries!

Back to Popeye's for a minute - Used to love it when I lived down south....was excited when one moved near me in Oregon. They can't make a friggin' BISCUIT! I have had better from a CAN. How can any place called "______ Chicken & Biscuits" and not teach their staff how to make a proper biscuit is beyond me. Apparently during whatever training they put their people through, "How to Cook Southern" is not a required class. Sorry - we did not bother to even try the rest of the menu after the biscuit.

I always figured the biscuits at popeyes, kfc, etc were all frozen and heated or out of a can like pillsbury. so I wouldn't blame the staff

quote:

Originally posted by pitxitxita

Back to Popeye's for a minute - Used to love it when I lived down south....was excited when one moved near me in Oregon. They can't make a friggin' BISCUIT! I have had better from a CAN. How can any place called "______ Chicken & Biscuits" and not teach their staff how to make a proper biscuit is beyond me. Apparently during whatever training they put their people through, "How to Cook Southern" is not a required class. Sorry - we did not bother to even try the rest of the menu after the biscuit.

Why not contact their corporate office? Since they're a franchise, they may not be able to get the same flour up there as they do in the South or maybe the biscuit maker was off that day. Ask the store manager to explain what's going on. Companies want to know, especially if it's a franchise. Their money's on the line!

The only fast food place that makes a good biscuit is Biscuit World in West Virginia. And not all Biscuit Worlds make a good biscuit...I'm looking at you Biscuit Worlds north of Charleston.