As of this morning I have seen 13 different fried chicken chains in London. They are as follows:

Kentucky Fried Chicken (predictably)
Tennessee Fried Chicken (what’s different about Kentucky and Tennessee fried chicken?)
Dallas Fried Chicken (Texas must have been feeling left out)
Southern Fried Chicken (but, oddly, no Northern, Eastern, or Western equivalents)
Halal Fried Chicken (I swear I’m not making this up)
Mmm Fried Chicken (bet it took minutes to come up with that catchy name)
American Fried Chicken (in case Kentucky, Tennessee, Dallas, and Southern weren’t ‘American’ enough?)
Tantalise Fried Chicken (what?!)
Fantastic Fried Chicken (almost rolls off the tongue like ‘Fantastic Four’)
City Fresh Fried Chicken (what, as opposed to ‘City Putrid Fried Chicken’?)
Chicken Cottage
Chicken Palace
Chicken Village

Now, the last three in particular caught my eye. I wonder if Chicken Cottage came along first and then someone else wanted to open a rival fast-food fried chicken joint and thought, “Hmm, ‘Chicken Palace’ sounds so much more upscale and classy. That’s a winner for sure!” Then along came a third chicken entrepreneur who decided that if there can be cottages and palaces of chicken, why not an entire village? And indeed, why not?

Personally, I do not believe the market it fully saturated yet and thus I propose something along the lines of Fried Chickens ‘R’ Us (obviously with the backwards ‘R’ a la Toys and Kids ‘R’ Us, but I don’t really know how to do that on the computer so use your imagination…). I think it really has a nice ring to it.

I ate lunch at McDonald's today. I ordered Chicken McNuggets as the main selection in my Value Meal and after paying the cashier, he asked me if I'd like any sauce with my meal. Of course I said I'd like some honey, because that's obviously the only appropriate choice of sauce when consuming McNuggets whether you're 3 or 23. The cashier looked at me oddly and asked if I wanted honey-mustard. 'No, I'd like honey.' Looking confused, he consulted someone I imagine was his boss, then informed that honey was not an option. I'm sorry, what? No honey? How is that even possible? OK, fine… I'll just have ketchup for my fries, then. Luckily, that request was granted, though I only got one measly packet.

I found out a few minutes later, as I was whining to Dan about the ridiculous lack of honey, that this sauce is not offered in the UK. He claimed he'd never seen honey in any of the McDonald's he's been in… Well, to this I have to say a big, fat BOOOOOO. I grew up eating McNuggets with honey at the Wexford Micky D's (and any other US McDonald's, for that matter) and I have to say that they were no where near as satisfying as I had been imagining simply because of the lack of appropriate sauce.

And because I get fixated on completely random tidbits, I googled the words "McDonald's", "Chicken McNuggets", and "honey" and found that I was not, in fact smoking crack when I proclaimed honey as a perfectly normal McNugget dipping sauce. Both Wikipedia (in their entry for Chicken McNuggets, of course) and McDonald's own US website (under their 'Bag a Meal' option) confirm that honey does exist as a dipping option. Apparently just not in Britain.