Hungry? Geeking out with website design or just busy at work? Looking for a post-game/pub crawl meal or snack? Usually in those situations something salty, greasy, meaty, overly bad for you goodness is what’s called for.

Even if you’re at work, out for lunch, sometimes there’s just the need to fill with something junky and outright bad for you. When it tastes good, that’s even better.

We’ve been following the release of KFC’s Double Down meat-wich. You can’t call it a sandwich as there’s much too much wich and no sand (bun) to speak of. Yes, the Earl of Sandwich would most likely be turning over between his two slices of bread after seeing KFC’s latest invention.

We decided to try it. All of us. We basically made a meal out of it over the weekend and now you get to find out what we think of Double Down.

The concept here is pretty simple. Two KFC boneless chicken breasts (which are essentially a split whole chicken breast), two pieces of bacon, two pretty thick slices of cheese, all served up sandwich style with no bread, but chicken taking it’s place. It comes fried or grilled.

For the most part, the guys seemed to enjoy it. The health conscious few, not so much. Our taste test was simple. We waited until all of us were nibbling on our own fingers with hunger, went out to a local KFC and ordered up two Double Downs (one grilled and one fried) for every two Editors and split the meatwiches in half so everyone had a whole Double Down made up of two different flavors.

Before we get into the taste, let’s talk about health. Double Downs are not light, healthy food. If you’re expecting salad or even Big Mac type of nutrition (in comparison anyways), Double Down is not it.

Calorically speaking, Double Down isn’t too bad. The grilled version weighs in at 460 calories while the fried version is around 540 calories. All in line with typical fast-food fare. Fat clocks in pretty heavy too (23 grams total in grilled, 32 grams total in fried), but the most shocking thing is the sodium level on these babies (1430mgs grilled, 1380mgs fried). (Detailed nutritional information available here.)

If I was out late at night, this thing probably would taste awesome. It’s got all the components that goes into drunks tasting bad food and calling it awesome (grease, meat, fried, salt, and one handed portability). Unfortunately, we were all hungry, drunk.

Does it taste like KFC chicken? Sort of, only you will taste all 1300+mgs of sodium in these babies. KFC is salty to begin with and two pieces will most likely set you back up to 2000mgs (on breasts). The issue here really is saltiness. The grilled version was the worst. Why the grilled version has more salt is really beyond me, but it’s so overpowering that none of us could really stomach a whole grilled Double Down.

Double Down has got that KFC flavor, but the salt just kills it. Too much of it just powers through any discernible KFC flavor and what you’re left with is just a hint of the Colonel’s 11 secret spices and flavors. Finger licking good? Only if you dipped your finger in ice-cream…

Price? It’s not cheap. KFC priced these babies at a premium, along the lines of a regular meal (chicken, cole slaw, biscuits, mash potatoes, etc.), only you don’t get the other meal components. $7+ bucks in some areas for a meal and close to $6 for the sandwich alone.

It was pretty much a consensus. We found the idea sound…a meatwich, but just too much salt to really get a taste of it. If you like that shockingly salty jump on your tongue, then this is the sandwich for you. Definitely hearty, but watch the nutritional info carefully. The flavor profile needs to be tweaked a lot and dial the salt back even more.

Still, I have to mention that if KFC had beer, shots of tequila with tunes, spinning disco ball, and darker atmosphere, I’d double down on these at 2am without any hesitation….but feel terrible for it the next day.

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