Chicken Sandwich Archives - Fly Right To Food

The Background

Nashville Hot Chicken is a spicy take on fried chicken that seems to get more and more popular with new restuarants opening up every year. 10-15 years ago I can’t really recall seeing too many Nashville Hot Chicken spots in Orange County. These days there seems to be quite a few.

Burnin’ Mouth at the Irvine Spectrum is one of the more recent Nashville Hot Chicken restaurants to open up in the area.

The Experience

Once you enter the restaurant you’re greeted by a few digital menus to order off of. The touch screen itself is easy enough to navigate through and select what you want. There’s no actual human interaction. That’s fine for most people but I could see it being problematic. If people have any questions about the menu there’s only one person manning the front.

Anytime I try a Nashville Hot Chicken spot I have to go with the chicken sandwich. I feel like that’s generally the item on the menu the restuarant is going to be most known for. Burnin’ Mouth calls their chicken sandwich the Coo Coo Sando. I grabbed the combo which comes with fries, and no drink which is kind of weird ($13.90).

There’s five different spice levels to choose from ranging from the lowest (Simple) to the hottest (Insane). I love me some spicy food but places are always different with how they define “spice”. So I played it safe and went with Ugly, which is the second hottest spice level.

The food came out pretty quickly and is a fair amount of food. The sandwich is a pretty decent size. It’s packed with coleslaw, crispy onions, a few pickles, and a large piece of fried chicken coated in spices and seasonings. The entire sandwich is oozing with a thousand island type sauce. It’s a really great presentation.

The piece of chicken had a nice crunch and had some spicy kick to it. Not overbearing heat but definitely a kick that I was a little surprised by. There were parts of the chicken that were a little dry and stringy though, which did take away from the overall enjoyment.

The brioche bun was nice and fluffy, the sauce very tasty, and the different textures with the cripsy onion, coleslaw, and pickles, all adding a diffent type of crunch and flavor with each bite. Overall a pretty delicious sandwich!

The fries were crispy with cajun seasoning sprinkled over the top. Definitely quality fries.

The Verdict

Burnin’ Mouth is a solid Nashville Chicken spot if you’re craving a spicy chicken sandwich. However, I can’t say it’s a place I’d go out of my way to go and get. While it’s pretty tasty, the dry, stringy parts of the chicken stood out to me. But if you find yourself out shopping at the Irvine Spectrum, it’s a solid place to stop by for a bite.

Crack Shack

The popular Southern California fried chicken sandwich staple made its way to the Las Vegas Strip back in 2019. Located in the MGM Park area, the Crack Shack provides all the familiar food items from it’s popular SoCal restaurants.

The Experience

So I have to admit, I’d never had Crack Shack and being both a Southern California native and a fried chicken lover, I really am at a loss of how I never ate here before. It took a recent trip to Vegas and a late night stroll down the strip for me to stop by and give the famous SoCal restuarant a try.

There’s a solid selection of chicken sandwiches of which to choose from at Crack Shack. I’m gonna be honest, I have no idea what kind of sando this is. Looked at the menu online since I forgot to take a picture of the menu (oops) while I was in the actual restaurant, and this ain’t on it. We’ll just call this the Generic Gary.

What matters MOST is this had a massive piece of juicy fried chicken. There’s a solid selection of sauces of which to choose from as well. I was focused on a couple of them – Baja Hot Sauce and Cracksup – to go along with my sandwich and Schmaltz Fries.

The Food

The outside coating of the fried chicken has a satisfying crunch to it that only comes with a good piece of fried chicken. Each bite of the fried chicken was moist, flavorful, and extremely tasty overall. It really is a LARGE piece of chicken. The bun was fluffy and soft and definitely had a nice fresh quality to it. I also liked the fact that it wasn’t overly “bready”. Since this was only chicken and bread essentially, a quality bun is quite important to pair with the tasty piece of fried chicken and Crack Shack delivers.

Something else that was enjoyable was the different types of sauces you can choose from. I went with the Baja Hot Sauce specifically for my chicken sandwich. Drizzling the Baja Hot Sauce onto each bite added some spice and went extremely well with the chicken. It wasn’t overly spicy, but still brought some heat, which was enjoyable. I didn’t try the other sauces with the chicken since I’m a pure spice lover and was absolutely digging the Baja Hot Sauce, so didn’t go with any other option this go around. I’ll have to try them next time…probably.

The fries were nice and crisp and tasty as well. No soggy fries here, which was quite a relief. There’s nothing worse than soggy fries, let’s be honest. Can’t really go wrong with a side of fries to accompany a nice chicken sando and these certainly hit the spot.

Is Crack Shack Worth A Visit?

Everything was freshly made here and despite the sandwich I got not having any trimmings – this was literally just chicken, bread, and sauce – was immensely satisfying for something so simple.

If you’re hungry on the Strip and craving a delicious fried chicken sandwich, Crack Shack certainly warrants a stop!

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