#FastFoodFriday: Long John Silver’s Ayam Penyet: It’s Like 2-Piece Chicken With a Large Bone

What do you associate Long John Silver with?

This fellow?

Or this…concoction?

Whether you’re a bookworm who’s stuck in the novel Treasure Island or a fast-food expert who’s tried all fast-food in Singapore and concluded that McDonald’s sour egg yolk loaded fries is the best fries ever, you won’t have expected this:

In case you still can’t believe your eyes, here’s the sentence that’ll cement this fact into your mind: Long John Silver’s has ayam penyet.

Yeah, the fried chicken dish that Singapore nor Malaysia dare to claim because it belongs solely to Indonesia. The fried chicken dish that CNN calls one of the “40 Singapore food we can’t live without”. The fried chicken dish that has gone high-SES with restaurants selling them because why not.

And now, the fried chicken dish that has become fast-food.

(By the way there’s also ayam panggang, but I don’t know what is that and don’t care).

(Okay, since we’re so informative, here’s what ayam panggang is: it’s the non-fried version of ayam penyet. You’re welcome.)

Long John Silver’s Ayam Penyet

You’d only be shocked if you’ve not come into to our app daily, because we’ve written about it before.

Now, if you’ve not even downloaded the app, you’d better do so before you miss out on even more entertaining, informative and meaningful contents, like Yishun landing on aliens or aliens landing on Yishun.

Since it’s #FastFoodFriday, what better way to end this workweek with this sinful dish that’s set to burn our tongue?

And so, we stole our boss’ credit card and here’s a review.

First Look

If you’re an ayam penyet fan, you’d know that the dish doesn’t just make you hungry; it’s perfect for Instagram as well, what with the large chicken thigh and sambal chilli that usually packs a punch.

And in Long John Silver’s marketing materials, it sure portrayed that point gao gao:

You can’t go wrong with that, right? It’s just like XiaoBeach73: no matter where you take the picture from, or what camera you see, it’ll turn out to be pretty, because XiaoBeach73 is the prettiest girl in Goody Feed.

But I guess there’s a difference between XiaoBeach73 and AyamPenyat19, because despite our photographer having a PhD in photographer and having 100 years of experience with DSLR, this is the best he could come out with:

So you get the gist: don’t bother Instagram-ing it. Not everyone is as photogenic as XiaoBeach73.

How does it taste then?

Taste Test

First of all, here’s an advice: don’t try to eat it with their plastic cutlery. It’ll be like drinking soup with a pair of chopsticks: the fork and knife cut the meat perfectly but with the large bone, you won’t be able to create the perfect cut.

And should you try to twist the fork to dig out the meat, I assure you that it’ll break within nanoseconds #truestory

I would have loved to come out with some chim description for this dish ‘cuz haters dissing on my English is affecting my self-esteem, but unfortunately, there’s no need to because I can sum it up with one sentence.

The chicken is like the usual two-piece chicken with bones and sambal chilli.

I kid you not.

Long John Silver’s chicken is usually soft and unusually sweet, and its battered skin is thick and crispy. And that, my haters readers, is how the Long John Silver’s ayam penyet tastes like.

Which might confuse you: isn’t ayam penyet supposed to have crispy and oily dark skin? And not battered skin?

Apparently not: the fast-food chain has opted for their usual light-brown battered skin, and so you’ll either love it or hate it: love it because of the familiarity, and hate it because of the familiarity as well.

The only difference is its sambal chilli which tastes just like those chilli in Muslim food stalls. Therefore, if you can’t take spicy food like our resident hunk BuffLord95, you’ll better steer clear of it: BuffLord95 almost fainted just by smelling the chilli.

Now, putting them all together, does it get the Goody stamp of approval?

I myself is a fan of Long John Silver’s chicken, so I managed to down the entire dish fastly quickly.

However, if you’re expecting those kind of ayam penyet from hawker centres, then be prepared to be disappointed: the taste isn’t even remotely close.

But if it’s just a meal without any expectation?

A thumbs-up. Just be mindful of the calories. I think I just gained two kilogrammes.

Rating: 4/5