Psyching myself up to eat chicken, but why am I so judgy?

Since I intend on living off chicken for the next few months, I guess I better start thinking of a criteria to which I will be judging on. Now, in my humble opinion, I believe Swiss Chalet is considered to be the apex of rotisserie chicken that one could buy.

I should clarify though, I’m not looking to source out a Swiss Chalet clone but finding one would be considered the holy grail of grocery rotisserie chicken. No, I’m simply saying that they know chicken and I’m using them as a bit of a bench mark for my tasting.

So, I get a fast, fresh and convenient container of chicken home, now what?

First of all, how does it look? What about the smell, and the overall appearance. Presentation is everything.  Then, we get into dissecting the chicken; tearing it apart and separating it. I find that grocery store chicken is usually always fatty. No one takes the time to trim the fat. I know, I get it, it adds flavor but there is a point where they could cut a bit back.

I then get into the tasting and I’m going to take note of the flavours.  Does the chicken taste like chicken? I know that sounds weird, but it’s important that I taste chicken flavour and not chemicals. So much can be lost in the preparation stage and so much can be lost by drowning it in some sort of MSG seasoning.

Another thing to consider would be if the chicken warm, cooked or overcooked, dry, and does it fall off the bone? You never really know until you get it home and as much as you try, you can’t tell looking through the plastic of the container. 

No matter how yummy the chicken smells from the counter at the store, to the car and home, it’s fast and cheap. However, it will be the satisfaction of knowing that I have uncovered the best grocery store rotisserie chicken available.