Mary Brown's

I'm not sure if you have noticed, but quietly, there is a new player in town when it comes to fried chicken.  It might appear that Mary Brown's is a completely new chain fast food joint, but in reality, it has been around for over 50 years.  Mainly located in Eastern Canada, it has found its way to the West Coast where most of their locations are in Surrey (and one just barely in North Delta on Scott Road).  I recently grabbed a bunch of their food to go including their chicken sandwiches.

So why don't I talk about them first with the Big Mary in regular and spicy.  The size of the sandwiches were pretty average with medium-sized fried chicken breasts.  I found the batter to be well-spiced, not too thick and crispy.  The meat itself was tender and not dry.  In terms of spice, I thought it was definitely there but not tongue-burning.  The mayo in the Big Mary was actually quite tasty and complimented the chicken well.  Although the sesame bun was not as dense as the ones found at A&W and Church's, it was still not as light as the brioche found at Popeye's and KFC.  A decent, if not average sandwich overall.

Moving onto their Fried Chicken, I would say the best comparison would be KFC.  Although the chicken is not exactly like KFC, the thin lightly crispy batter tastes somewhat like KFC and the meat has the same consistency where it is on the drier side.  The one big difference is the spicy version as it does have a good kick and does not have to be over-breaded like the KFC one.  I didn't mind the chicken, but my personal bias towards juicier chicken moves the needle closer to Church's and Hi-Five for me.

Off to some sides, their Taters were really good as the crunch was consistent and the potato texture inside was soft and plentiful.  They were also flavourful on their own.  We universally disliked the Macaroni and Cheese Salad as it tasted like cold pasta with a red pepper flavoured Cheese Whiz type sauce.  If this was served hot, I believe it would've been better.  However, the macaroni was al dente, which meant the texture was on point. Probably our favourite item of the bunch was their Chicken Pop-ins.  Essentially their version of popcorn chicken, these were large in size with plenty of meat.  On the outside, the coating was crunchy with enough seasoning that we didn't even need the dip.  Wasn't a fan of the gravy as it was far too thick and I could've just made some with packets of powdered gravy at home.  So overall, the food at Mary Brown's was somewhat of a disappointment.  It wasn't terrible, but compared to my favourite fast food fried chicken spots in town (such as Church's and Hi-Five), it lags behind.

The Good:
- Spice level is good
- Chicken Pop-ins are better than KFC's popcorn chicken

The Bad:
- Food lags behind some of the other fast food chains in town