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Is KFC’s New Chili Lime Chicken Worth The Hype?

By MDJ Superstar
October 13, 2010 //
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There are only three things in life that Real Manly Men like you and I need to eat:

  1. Raw meat
  2. Goat entrails
  3. Fried chicken

Bonus points if you somehow manage to concoct yourself a goulash consisting of all three…

But that’s it. No fancy frou-frou salads. No delicate flaky pastries. Just authentic barbarian entrees served with a minimum of flash and frills.

Now, when it comes to item number 3 on  my list of Manly Food, I like to keep things simple. Just some basic fried chicken, a side of cole slaw, a mountain of mashed potatoes a triple serving of rice, and a bargeful of gravy to keep things nice and lubricated. KFC does a good job of providing this core Manly Food Item. Certainly well enough that I don’t need to explore other, less masculine options such as Jollibee, McDonald’s, or even *shudder* Popeye’s.

Man, that’s a lot of food.

But every now and then, KFC comes up with something that surprises me and makes my manly throat utter a nervously excited squeak.

Today, I saw something that elicited precisely that unbecoming Girly Squeak from my Superstar throat.

It was the all-new KFC Chili Lime Chicken.

I was so intrigued that I just had to cancel various bank-related errands for my Thailand trip, and drop by their President’s Avenue branch for an impromptu pit stop.

I wanted the pure, virginal experience, so I just ordered a basic 2-piece meal, double rice, no sidings. I needed to know how the Chili Lime chicken stood up to my discerning Manly Palate in its most naked form.

The verdict?

It’s exactly how you imagine it to be: their moist, juicy chicken marinated in a lime-infused mix, deep-fried in their crisp golden batter (which is exactly the same as their Hot & Crispy batter, btw), then coated with finely-powdered layers of chili and lime.

It wasn’t spectacular. But it was very good. The lime taste was very subtle – more of an aftertaste, really, but played off the zesty chili very well. It brought back memories of gin-laden nights in the old Peligro bar, and gave an unexpectedly fresh, green twist to a normally very “brown” food in one’s mouth. The chili wasn’t amped up to the levels of the basic Hot & Crispy version though, which I found disappointing. I have high heat tolerance when it comes to food, and I think that even more spice would have been a mind-blowing contrast to the mild citrus undertones.

I also found it quite strange that it was served with a cup of the standard KFC gravy. Purists will say that’s the only true way to enjoy one’s KFC, but I personally found it to be too meaty to complement the fresh south-of-the-border zestiness of the chicken. I think sour cream would have been a perfect side, with a twist of lime perhaps, but that may be too posh for KFC’s marketing model.

It wasn’t spectacular, as I’ve said, but it certainly is a very intriguing play in the mouth. But you do need to run over to KFC soon if you want to get it. In an exclusive one-on-one interview that may or may not have occurred between MDJ Superstar and KFC’s Global Chief Executive Presidential Chairman on Chili Lime Chicken & Miscellaneous Fixins for Developing Markets & Southern Illionois, the Superstar learned that this new offering will be available until the end of 2010 only, and will be re-evaluated as to market feasibility and sustained presence.

KFC’s new Chili Lime chicken is available at the same price as both their Original Recipe and Hot & Crispy variants, and can be mixed-and-matched with them as you please, even in the various Combo Meal iterations.

I couldn’t find a local TV commercial on YouTube (is there even one?) but this version from another Asian market says everything you need to know about this fresh new kid on the Fried Chicken block.

KFC Chili Lime chicken isn’t the greatest chicken dish in the world, but it certainly is worth a taste or two. Manly Men thrive on keeping themselves fresh, revitalized, reinventive, and new*, and when it comes to keeping one’s portfolio of culinary options up-to-date, there are certainly worse ways to go than this zesty new choice from Colonel Sanders’ own kitchen.

* – Just like Madonna.

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Categories Food, Manly Man Manifesto, Personal

“Imagine What I Could Do To You” (A Theme Song for Manly Men)

By MDJ Superstar
September 24, 2010 //
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There are four things men need in life to prove they are truly rugged, manly specimens worthy of the Manly Man Manifesto:

1. A sizable bottle of Axe deodorant.

2. A hairy chest at Hasselhoff-ian levels of furriness.

3. A Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band handlebar moustache (with the guiding principle being, if something can make Paul McCartney look totally butch, then it must be manly).

4. A marching song.

The first three items have been easy to acquire on MDJ Superstar’s lifelong quest to achieve legendary status as a truly tremendous Titan of Testosterone.

But the fourth, a marching song raging with thunder and fury, sure to set panties dropping and lesser men fleeing as a Manly Man enters a room – that is something that MDJ Superstar was sorely lacking.

Until today, that is.

After years of searching, MDJ Superstar has finally found a song worthy of his raging manhood.

It’s the entrance theme to pro wrestling legend, the Exotic Adrian Street, a man who knew what true dude-itude (the science of dude-ness) was all about.

The lyrics are stellar. Here’s a sample:

I can tear a telephone directory in two
Bending iron bars is something else that I can do
I always pick my teeth with the nearest billiard cue
So imagine what I could do to you

I can crush a housebrick with one movement of my hand
And laugh while I reduce it to a dusty heap of sand
I cut a splendid figure when I make my chest expand
So imagine what I could do to you

Pretty butch, huh?

I performed a live rendition of this for my Marketing colleagues, accompanying myself on the bagpipe as I slowly unfolded interpretative dance steps inspired by Toni Braxton’s immortal classic, “Unbreak My Heart.”

I assure you, by the time I was done, there was not a single dry eye in the room.

Just listen to this, you manly men. And imagine, what I could do to you.

It’s preposterous! It’s testosterone! It’s.. PREPOSTERONE!!

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Categories Manly Man Manifesto, Personal

3 Severely Unimpressive Movie-Inspired Nicknames For Your Pee-Pee

By MDJ Superstar
July 6, 2010 //
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This article is Part Two of the on-going Manly Man Manifesto series. Click here for Part One. 

One thing unique to the Culture of Dudeness is the overwhelming impulse to assign an impressive nickname to one’s pee-pee. 

Movies are a favourite inspiration, and it isn’t difficult to pick a suggestively macho name from the holy Pantheon of Manly Movies. There’s a formula; just take the title of any movie that features a large, exaggeratedly-muscled, testosterone-laden alpha male or feral beast with obvious genetic gifts in the departments of size, strength, and stamina, and 9 times out of 10 you’ll come up with an appropriate nom de penis sure to drop jaws and soak panties among the underage Cebuana schoolgirl crowd. 

10 easy examples inspired loosely by Maxim magazine’s list of The 100 Greatest Guy Movies Ever Made: 

  1. The Terminator
  2. The Incredible Hulk
  3. King Kong
  4. The Godfather
  5. Lethal Weapon
  6. The Fast & The Furious
  7. Raging Bull
  8. Dirty Harry
  9. Apocalypse Now
  10. Top Gun

Not too hard, was it? 

There are times, however, when the formula falls short, and you end up with a movie title that should get hearts thumping and hormone levels rising, but instead elicits feelings of shock, repulsion, and, in the absolute worst cases, even pity. 

Here are 3 movie titles that fit the formula above, yet should not, under any circumstances, be used as dudespeak for one’s junk. 

  1. Shrek. On the surface, this sounds like it should be a terrific pee-pee pseudonym. On the good side, it refers to a gargantuan hulking beast that strikes fear in the heart of English virgins. On the bad side, it refers to a gargantuan hulking beast in an unfortunate shade of seasick green, emits foul odours, and spends an inordinate amount of time immersed in slop and filth.
  2. Gone In 60 Seconds. 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds is a great metric when referring to the power behind an Italian sportscar. When your speed however stops relating to awesome horsepower and starts suggesting less-than-stellar lasting power among giggling nubile schoolgirls, then you probably need to rethink your naming strategy.
  3. Scarface. By all accounts, this should be a legendary name for a legendary man-sausage. It’s the title of one the most bad-ass dudeflicks of all time. A movie starring a young, edgy Al Pacino snorting copious amounts of cocaine, ruthlessly commanding a massive drug empire, and wielding an earth-pounding arsenal of firepower & explosives sounds like it should be a surefire hit among the weaker sex. When the name, however, simultaneously suggests rotting masses of scabs and stitches, and whose most memorable quote is “Say hello to my little friend,” then one should perhaps set one’s sights lower in scaling the Mount Everest of sexual conquests…

"Say hello to my little friend." - A great bad-ass line to intimidate vicious Cuban assassins with. A less-than-awesome line to get a hook-up going.

 

In closing, MDJ Superstar says to all dudes to choose wisely, exaggerate judiciously, and always make sure to refer to your penis as an entity independent yet entirely co-equal to yourself. 

A movie-inspired nickname, when selected correctly, adds legend to one’s pocket rocket. 

But always remember to think things through. You never want your latest bedmate to pass on to the rest of her sorority any piece of humiliating gossip of the one unmemorable night that she spent with you, two paper cups of flat beer, and a flaccid, diminutive piece of man-meat that will live on in infamy as thoroughly unimpressive Stuart Little. 

Got any great suggestions of your own? Terrible ones? Comment away, Superstarlets!

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Categories Manly Man Manifesto

The Manly Man Manifesto (Why Real Men Work Out, and the Cheats We Need To Get There)

By MDJ Superstar
September 2, 2008 //
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This article appears in the launch issue of Manila Bulletin’s super cool new men’s magazine, Garage, coming out sometime between now and February 2017.

Everybody needs to agree on this: real men work out to look sexy.

Once upon a time, being buff served a practical purpose. Buff cavemen slaughtered more stegosaurus for steak-and-bowling nights than scrawny ones. Buff religious figures (see: Samson, 88 Old Testament Road, Rome) put up bigger fights than their daintier counterparts (see: Jesus Christ, 3 Salvation Way, Bethlehem) before dying at the hands of pagans.

 

But these days, being buff satisfies a less pragmatic but infinitely more pleasurable cause than securing dinosaur steaks or conquering infidel hordes: bagging babes. I’ve learned one thing from the ones I’ve dated. All else being equal, they would rather make out with a sleek, nicely-toned dude than a pudgy man-boobed one.

 

Sadly, muscles don’t come easily. It’s not uncommon to see a skinny nerd complaining how six months of workouts have failed to produce the slightest change in his physique, except for a mildly uncomfortable hernia. Neither is it unusual to see a chunky slob moaning how despite a daily 8-kilometer jog, he still can’t see his toes without an intricate system of perfectly aligned hand mirrors and a miniature forklift.

 

Here’s the tragic reality. Just like on our LTO tests, we sometimes need to cheat to get babe-baggingly sexy. This is where fitness supplements come in.

 

Supplements falls broadly into two categories: mass-builders (which make us Really Big), and mass-reducers (which make us Really Ripped). There is, of course, the third category of anabolic steroids, which make us Really Dead, but seeing how dead men don’t get to bag quite as many babes as live ones do, we will artfully ignore them for now.

 

First Sexiness Postulate: to get Really Big, muscles need protein to reconstruct themselves. Chicken breasts, tuna, and lean pork seem to be favorites among the monsters I’ve lifted weights with. The problem is that these natural protein-packed choices come with excess baggage like sodium and calories.

 

Here’s where protein shakes come in. Concentrated protein in powder form with minimal nasties. Brilliant. If Bruce Banner had heard of them, he’d never gone lounging in front of a gamma ray to mutate himself into a permanently roid-raged, green freak.

 

They don’t taste particularly great though.

 

Imagine a tall, cold glass filled with a rich, creamy, chocolate froth. Sounds nice? Now imagine accidentally tipping a muddy-tasting ladleful of munggo guisado into it. (That fluttering you hear is the sound of bodybuilders all over the country nodding sadly in agreement.)

 

Second Sexiness Postulate: getting Really Ripped means burning more calories than are consumed. Since it’s impossible to convince us real men to swear off pizza and sisig, fitness manufacturers instead sell us products called thermogenics, whose function is to throw our metabolic systems into overdrive the Whole Freaking Day.

 

Here’s how they make you feel.

 

You’re in an incessant sweat. Your pulse is racing the whole day. I am told that your body is operating two degrees above normal. No wonder bodybuilders are cranky. Their armpits are perpetually damp. Imagine having to walk into a swank Serendra date with wet armpits. There is no way you would be sweetly pleasant in this state.

 

I suppose that what I am looking for is compassion for bodybuilders, despite their general appearance as a conceited, temperamental bunch.

 

I ask you this – if you ate nothing but munggo milkshakes, and had persistently wet underarms, wouldn’t you be in a foul mood too? Around us are men who have sacrificed worldly wonders like deep-dish pizzas and frappucinos for a simple, noble vision: to be sexy enough to bag a babe. I say that vision is worth respecting. We have no stegosaurus left to slaughter, no barbarian heretics to slay. A man of muscle needs assurance that he remains relevant and useful to this world.

 

And what better reassurance is there than being loved?

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Categories Fitness, Manly Man Manifesto
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