Critic's Review
I didn't know anything about Popeye's before I moved to South Florida; the only 2 nearby locations are located in that no-man's land between Downtown and Plantation. Both of the stores are the kind of joints you find in slum neighborhoods; poorly maintained and staffed, and I have to wonder if the really care what comes out of the kitchen. But Popeye's has been doing a lot of local advertising on upscale TV stations like CNBC, and they build a new location on Commercial East of 95. It appears that they're trying to position themselves in the same niche as Chick-Fil-A.
I have to admit the commercials are compelling. Spicy chicken. Spicy Shrimp. Louisiana spice. I wasn't very hungry, so I thought I'd try it and just toss it if it was as bad as the chicken I'd gotten at the other location.
It's a big fancy place, fast foodish but not much different than the Chick-Fil-A in Pompano.
Everyone was very friendly; don't expect that to last long. The food sounds better on TV than it does on their menu; I decided to get a fish and shrimp "Combo", which includes a drink for $6.99. Certainly cheap enough.
I wanted to do like 80/20 with the unsweet/sweet tea as they don't have sugar. They only have artificial sweeteners. They also don't have lemons; just lemon packets.Ugh. I haven't eaten fast food in a while; I'd forgotten what a crap experience it is. The tea was going to take a while to refill, so I grabbed a seat in the back. The decor isn't bad for a fast food joint; they have some hokey thing in the middle and they play jazzy New Orleans type music.
The fish and shrimp looked pretty bad. I mean really bad. Heavily breaded and not much inside. I though it would be better than this. I mean, heck, the fish sandwich at McD's and White Castle isn't bad at all.
The cole slaw wasn't too colorful and I feared it was laden with sugar, but it actually wasn't bad. There's some sort of pickle relish in it to sweeten it, but as it turned out it was the only edible thing on the tray.
The breading is very heavy, and there were little slivers of fish inside.
The breading tasted like breading; not like some special "Louisiana" concoction. I had to pick off most of the breading to get 1 bite of fish. Good thing I had the tub of tartar sauce.
The shrimp was actually ridiculous. "Popcorn" shrimp are small, but I remember the first time I had popcorn shrimp at Houlihan's and I couldn't get enough of them. These were so heavily breaded and so dried out that they had zero taste. It was like eating a lump of breading. Even picking out the shrimp served no purpose as they were withered well beyond the point of edibility.
I couldn't even drink the tea with no lemon. I filled up the cup and brought it home and dropped a half lemon in it and salvaged SOMETHING from the experience.
Conclusion
Any suspicions that the Popeye's locations on W Broward and W Sunrise suck because of where they're located can be dismissed. Popeye's isn't good. Breading is expected in Fast Food, but it's nice to get something inside that's edible, which wasn't the case here today.
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