You can guess exactly when I took this picture from KFC's website.

Psych!!! Sike?!? wtf knows? Come on now. Did any of you really think KFC would extend an invitation to me to test out the Double Down before its launch on Monday? Here's what really happened:

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon and we were headed to see Jill at Domaine LA when out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a bunch of banners for the Double Down at the the KFC on the corner of Vine and De Longpre in Hollywood. Immediately, I thought "there's no way they'd put that many signs up for a product that wasn't available until Monday right?" Right? Curiosity got the better of me and I pulled into the KFC parking lot and said to C "I'm just going to run in real fast and see if the Double Down is really available today."

Once I was inside, I nearly crapped my pants when I realized: it WAS available. What to do though? I just had Sapp's Thai Boat Noodles, so I wasn't hungry. But did I really want to pass up on the opportunity to try out the Double Down? Minutes turned into hours (ok, it was a few more minutes), as I decided what to do. I wasn't planning on eating the Double Down today, especially since I had a lunch date meeting with one of my twitter unicorns, Jesse aka TriceraPops, Monday for the Double Down showdown tweetup. My fried chicken addiction got the better of me and I ended up getting in line to order one of these bad boys.

With the bag in hand, I jumped in the car, opened up the box and the first I did was...snap a pic.

What were my initial thoughts upon looking at this thing? It's f'ing substantial. It's a large ass sandwich, that's a lot of fried chicken and there is NO WAY that thing is only 540 calories. NO WAY. You're holding two pieces of fried chicken with some cheese, bacon and sauce. It's absurd. With that thought in my head, I took a bite of the thing.

Verdict? Wow, was this thing salty! I couldn't taste anything except salt. In fact, my tongue went numb after the second bite. I could feel my body starting to bloat from two bites of this bad boy. Whatever spices they used on the chicken, it was just too much. I couldn't taste the Colonel's special sauce, but it was probably adding to the saltiness of the "sandwich." 1380mg of sodium my ass. Everything on the nutritional content for the Double Down screams BS once you take a bite.

Don't get me wrong, I love my fried chicken, but when I order a two or three piece combo somewhere, I don't try to eat ALL of the chicken at once. It's eaten and enjoyed one piece at a time. For me, good fried chicken means taking a bite and getting just the right ratio of fried skin and juicy tender meat. You just don't get that with the Double Down because there is TOO MUCH OF IT AT ONCE! Even for someone like me who loves fried chicken, this was overkill. I never thought I'd say I had too much fried chicken, but I had to capitulate with the Double Down. We stuck it back in the box and tossed it in the back seat.

Later on in the afternoon, C and I decided to walk around Hollywood and Melrose like tourists. We'll take a little picture break before getting back to the Double Down situation.

With that little tour Hollywood and Melrose out of the way, dinner became our topic of discussion. Granted, my tongue still felt like it was stuck to a salt lick from the first two bites of the Double Down, but as a fried chicken fanatic, I couldn't let it go to waste. C suggested we eat light and at the moment, it clicked: the Double Down Chopped Salad was born.

Fried Chicken should never be wasted. NEVER.

Once we got home, we took the remainder of the the Double Down, heated it up and chopped it. It became the protein for our chopped salad.

We chopped the Double Down down to size

The Double Down plus the salad was an perfect evening dinner. Chopping up the Double Down brought the fried chicken into proportion and was a perfect complement to the chopped salad.

So in the end, we still salvaged the Double Down. On Monday, I will still slay the Double Down beast with TriceraPops. Game on KFC. Game on. And yes, my life insurance policy is updated.

You can get C's take on the Double Down here. She was the executive chef of the Double Down Chopped Salad.

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- Ludo visits The Foundry last week, tweeting that Chef Eric Greenspan wasn't around and that "maybe" he should take over the kitchen.
- Eric responds by tweeting him to join him in the kitchen on Tuesday for Bluesy Tuesday at the Foundry for fried chicken night.
- Eric tweets out an APB for more deep fryers, with Akasha Richmond of Akasha Restaurant tweeting in for the rescue.

And as a result, diners had a chance to enjoy fried chicken prepared two ways a la Chef Ludo and Chef Eric.

The question you're asking yourself is: so which chef had the better fried chicken? The answer would be: tough to say. Our table of four was evenly split as to which chef fried the better chicken. Both have their styles, both were good and it really came down personal taste buds. Chef Ludo's crispy shell, seasoning, juicy innards popped when you bit into each nugget, whereas a bite of Chef Eric's fried chicken took you back home, where you were having a lazy Sunday afternoon picnic with a bucket of fried chicken. At the end though, the fact that my friends ranked both fried chickens in the Popeye's/Roscoe's echelon was a good sign. Two fun chefs, two pieces of fried chicken, tasty soulful sides, how could you go wrong?

Eric Greenspan's Fried Chicken - down home goodness

Ludo Lefebvre's Fried Chicken - uptown flavors

But since we couldn't subsist on fried chicken alone, although I could argue otherwise, and since we could not place more than one order per person, we took a stroll down the Bluesy Tuesday menu.

Short Rib Grilled Cheese Sandwich

This wasn't on the Bluesy Tuesday menu, but it did win top honors at the Grilled Cheese Festival. We had two more of these later in the evening. Tasty little buggers.

Collard Greens

Grits

Fried Green Tomatoes

Aside from the fried chicken, this was the most popular dish of the night at our table.

Creamed Corn

Potato Soup

Another item from the main menu. With leek and bacon bread pudding sitting underneath the fried egg, it felt like I was eating a baked potato. My friends really enjoyed the leek and bacon bread pudding.

So who won? The diners did. It's great to see chefs harness the power of twitter, work together and create a night of fried chicken heaven. Hopefully this won't be the last time we see great chefs in LA working together on a fun night like Bluesy Tuesday.

Amazingly, on a night when most of the twitterverse was in the house, I managed to only run into @frenchchefwife, which means that maybe I'm back to being undercover...again.

The Foundry on Melrose
7465 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 651-0915

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