The Secret Menu: Roasted Chicken Popper

By Nick Zavarella

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Before I dive into the fourth and, might I add, best sandwich yet,

I would like to note that I watched a movie in my bio class about

the slaughtering of animals and its effect on our food… That being

said, I decided to throw a curveball and headed to Arby’s for my

own concoction.

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credit actually goes to Matt Tullis but I’m the one who ate it so

I’m naming it the Roasted Chicken Popper.

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Roasted Chicken Popper is comprised of a regular roast beef

sandwich, a piece of chicken and jalapeño poppers. If you’re

thinking you like all of those things, go to Arby’s and get it.

Yeah, they are going to look at you weird but I already paved the

way, so try it.

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Looking at how Arby’s puts their sandwiches together, they know

what they’re doing. Instead of piling vertically like some sort of

muscle-pulling skyscraper, Arby’s spreads things out on a wider

bun. The medium roast beef sandwich encompassed not only the piece

of chicken but multiple poppers safely and easily. The sandwich

held together unlike every other sandwich I have eaten to this

point and the mess was minimal.

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first problem I have with the sandwich is the problem of looking

like an idiot. Taking bites isn’t bad but biting a popper in half,

thus pulling the scalding hot jalapeño out of the deep-fried

goodness and exposing it to the world, halfway out of your mouth is

not cool. Too hot to man up and stuff it in (considering my mouth

is already full of roast beef and chicken), I had to pull the

jalapeño out of my mouth and put it back onto the sandwich – minor

but still notable.

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second is the taste of the chicken patty. It didn’t work well with

the roast beef for reasons I wish I could explain. I seemed to

always end on a slightly awful chicken aftertaste. If the chicken

was better, this might be the best sandwich I have ever eaten. This

was my only legitimate problem with Roasted Chicken

Popper.

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$9.48 was the total for the bill, which included the sandwich plus

a small drink. 10 bucks for a sandwich, a darn good sandwich, but a

sandwich nonetheless. The main draw to the sandwich is definitely

the jalapeño poppers but who goes to Arby’s for a single order of

poppers? Get the sandwich and enjoy it because you’re not going to

want to dish out the money for another one.

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Overall, I give the sandwich an A. The jalapeño poppers hanging out

of your mouth is a small inconvenience but the deliciousness of the

sandwich overpowers this technicality. The chicken could be better

but overall it’s not horrible. The fourth installment of the Secret

Menu was by far the most successful, and it’s safe to say the fifth

installment has its work cut out for it.