Kotas Reviews the Arby's Rib Sandwich

 Uuuuuh...hi. Been a long time since I poked around in here. Honestly, it's been a pretty rough couple of years for me. Between well, EVERYTHING, and my own personal hardships, my mental state has been less than optimal. In June of this year, my father, disabled for many years due to a stroke, passed away. Dealing with that has taken a toll. All that said, there is daylight at the end of this long, stupid tunnel, and perhaps this blog post is one of the first steps out. Or maybe I was just SO FUCKING OFFENDED by a sandwich that I had to talk about it. Ladies and Gentlemen, let's dive into the Arby's Rib Sandwich.

This is from the Arby's website. Not representative of real life.

There have been a lot of food trends that have passed me by. The Age of Flavor is upon us still, despite all the insanity, and I must commend Arby's for trying to stand out from the crowd with something rarely offered: Ribs. We're still recovering from the Great Chicken Sandwich Wars of the 2020s, but Arby's just keeps on trying to keep our spirits up with its ridiculous concoctions. So let's talk ribs!

I'm a big fan of barbeque, and I'm a big fan of ribs. Rib-oriented food joints don't tend to do well (R.I.P. Smokey Bones...at least in my area) without also providing a fuller barbeque experience. Still, the only rib sandwiches I'd had previously were from weird hole in the wall barbeque joints that serve it surly and with a side of sass. Boy that shit is good. Sure, McDonald's has the "McRib", but it's more of a "rib inspired pork sandwich" than a real rib sandwich, right? This appears to be much more like the real deal. Let's eat!

It is a sad day indeed when I bite into a huge chunk of rib meat and realize that it Has. No. Flavor. Like, the meat is chewy nothing. There's texture, sure. It's even the texture of well cooked rib meat. But the flavor is just...absent. All I can taste is the barbeque sauce (which is fine) and the mayonnaise. The cheese might as well not even be there. The onion toppers are fairly good though, so kudos on Arbys for that. What a fucking huge disappointment this is, because the sandwich LOOKS amazing. Like a real rib sandwich. There is just NO FUCKING FLAVOR at all. What a waste of space this thing is.

On the FACE Rating System, this gets 2 Frowny Faces. It didn't poison me, but I never want to eat it again, and neither should you. To simulate the flavor, get a bun, slather it with mayo and BBQ sauce, then put some onion rings on it, and finally, tofu bits. Now you know exactly how this thing tastes. (Not that tofu is bad, just that without other flavors it adds nothing but texture.). DO NOT buy this. 

Kotas Reviews the KFC Firelog

 There is nothing more picturesque on Christmas Morning than stockings hung over a roaring fire in the fireplace. But what if the Yule Log also smelled of fried chicken? Is it the gift you didn't even know you wanted? Or is it a Krampus Miracle? Ladies and Gentlemen, on this very snowy Christmas Morning, let's take a look at the KFC Fire Log.

It Does Exist!

In case you haven't heard, the Marketing Team over at KFC has been huffing some serious paint, because they have had a number of super strange promotions. A computer that warms chicken for you while you play. Edible nail polish. Scented shoes. A full on Lifetime Mini-Movie. A freakin' DATING SIM which also has a DOG as a TEACHER. They have gone full on coo-coo bananas with this thing. Honestly? A scented fire log is probably not as crazy as some of this stuff. I mean, there are pine scented ones at the grocery store. But, lucky for you, my dozens of fans, I had my fireplace cleaned out and made ready for use this year, just in time for the holidays! It's gonna be a delicious kind of Christmas, right? 

Behold the Magnificence!

A very good friend of mine got me this as an early Christmas Gift and I can honestly say it was probably the best surprise of the season. Mostly because there is no way in hell I would have EVER guessed that THIS is what I was getting for Christmas. How does one even start here? Well, let's get through the basics. The KFC Firelog is just an Enviro-Log brand fire log heavily laced with the scent of KFC fried chicken. The box and paper covering are both covered in warnings to Please Do Not Eat, and while it is mostly a hilarious joke warning, the thing REALLY DOES smell exactly like KFC Fried Chicken. Down to the little bits of pepperiness you always smell with their chicken. If you leave it for a while, it does sort of permeate the room, but not overwhelmingly so. 

Burns pretty well, really.

It's an Enviro-Log, so it lights pretty readily, and burns nice and evenly. For a one log fire, it produced a lot of heat. The packaging says that the fried chicken smell will burn off fairly quick and thus not be present during the burning of the log. As the memes say, that was a fucking lie. It's not super strong, but all through the burning of the log I got a steady, pleasant aroma of KFC fried chicken. Honestly, it made me pretty hungry. Whatever chemical engineers they got to extract the KFC essence? They do amazing work. 

I'm not even sure what this resembles.

For all that 2020 has sucked the big fat one, this was a little dose of ridiculousness that I could put in my fireplace and enjoy. Not everything is extra crispy though. For one, the thing looks really weird as it burns. If you care about the aesthetics of the fire in your fireplace, you will be disappointed. Second it only burned for about 2.5 hours, whereas most commercial fire logs burn about 4. Still, stepping outside to take a picture of the snowfall and getting a nice whiff of that sweet chicken-y goodness? That's classic y'all.

All Good Things...

Much like the fire log, this review must come to an end. On the FACE Rating System, this gets a solid 2 Smiley Faces. I rather enjoyed the experience, and the log itself was pretty nice in my fireplace, even if it didn't last as long as I would have liked. My fireplace still smells faintly of fried chicken, though I suspect that will end once I burn another log in there. If you have a fireplace, or firepit, or some other place to burn things, get yourself one of these and have a chicken-y old time. From all of us here at Kotas Reviews Everything, we wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Happy Kwanzaa, a Merry Yule, a Debauched Saturnalia, and a very solemn Life Day.