Today I shall discuss the cost-effectiveness of the three main fast food delivery services.
I find that KFC Delivery has the best value for money. For 50SGD I was able to get enough food for a 3-person dinner, and another 2-4 meals.
What I ordered was a Bargain Deal, 2 Ultimate Value Boxes, 2 Fish Zingers, 1 Shroom Burger, 1 Large Whipped Potato and a $5 addon for 4 drumsticks for $50. What these gave me was these:
-12 pieces of chicken
- 3 Shroom Burgers
- 2 Fish Zingers
- 2 Small Whipped Potatoes
- 2 Medium Whipped Potatoes
- 1 Large Whipped Potato
- 1 Medium Coleslaw
Initially I was planning to order an extra Shroom Burger instead of the addon, but how can anyone resist 4 drumsticks for a mere $5?? Almost all value meals or deals from fast food restaurants are bullshit, but this feels seriously cheap. It's more than a half price discount!
Anyway for Pizzahut, $50 would get me just enough for a 3-person dinner and another 1 meals, unless I order nothing but pizzas. Why would I want such a monotonous meal?
One example of my order is a Crunchy Cheesy Meal and 3 baked rice for $55. That gave me:
- 1 Regular Super Supreme Crunchy Cheesy Bites pizza
- 1 Garlic Bread
- 6 pieces of Chicken Karage
- 3 Baked Rice
This set gave me a 3-person dinner and 2 more meals. To get it below $50, I'd have to remove one baked rice. That's a 1-meal reduction.
McDelivery's menu is roughly as expensive as Pizzahut's. Since I don't want drinks, I'd usually order maybe 2 value meals and lots of ala carte stuff. For example, I once ordered 1 Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, 1 Quarter Pounder with Cheese, 1 Filet O Fish, 1 Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese Upsized Meal, 1 Mega Mac Upsized Meal and 1 Lunch Bundle for $50.
What I got was:
- 2 Double Quarter Pounders with Cheese
- 1 Quarter Pounder with Cheese
- 1 Mega Mac
- 2 Filet O Fish
- 1 McSpicy
- 6 pieces McNuggets
- 2 Medium Fries
- 2 Large Shaker Fries
- 1 Medium Green Tea
- 1 Medium Milo
I know the list is longer but many of the stuff are small. The 4 fries, 2 drinks, 6 McNuggets and 3 of the larger burgers would become the 3-person dinner. That leaves nothing but the 3 smaller burgers and a large one, enough for two meals.
In conclusion, Pizzahut has the most heavily advertised but also the most expensive delivery menu. McDonald's comes second and KFC is the cheapest.
Packaging and service-wise, KFC is pretty much the worst. Pizzahut has the best packaging and nothing leaks mostly because of the nature of its products. Nothing is messed up when they arrive and the cardboard boxes are really good for both absorbing any condensation and heat insulation.
McDonald's understandably has problems with bringing food to the customers in perfect conditions because of the food they serve. One example is the fries. It's hard to make them stay crunchy especially in larger orders like mine. It can only be done if nothing is pressing on them during delivery, which is pretty much impossible unless you use lots of separate bags. So at least a third the fries I get from McDelivery is kind of soggy.
But I have to say two things that they did right. First, it's the paper bags. They absorb condensation which the plastic bags, which their outlets often use, can't. This helps the fries stay crunchy a bit longer. The other is that they try to pack it really neatly such that the fries don't spill out. I'm usually the first to unpack food so I can tell. It's very obvious anyway, how they stack the food. It's almost as if they hire people with OCD specially for that job.
KFC, being the cheapest in terms of volume versus price, has the worst packaging. Even right from the beginning when I call them, they told me the fries would get soggy by the time they reached me. Seriously, I was informed about that once after I ordered a Snack box. That guy was pretty honest, I like that. For the company though, that's probably not such a good move.
Alright, other than the fries, two other bad points. First, the whipped potatoes. Almost everything from Pizzahut can be reheated in conventional ovens. Pizzas, baked rice, garlic bread. Their pizza boxes even come with printed instructions for reheating. McDonald's, everything can be easily placed on a plate and microwaved, like fries, McNuggets and burgers. It's practically intuitive.
But KFC Whipped Potatoes can't be reheated in either of these! The plastic cups they come in aren't microwave-safe and obviously heating them conventional ovens would give you a new side dish called "Whipped Plastic". If you pour it out, you can't put it in the same plate as the chickens. You can place fries and burgers or pizzas and pasta in the same cooking device simultaneously, but you cannot microwave whipped potatoes and chickens together. The chicken may come into contact with the gravy! I'm picky like that. I don't like to mix stuff together if they aren't supposed to be mixed together, unless I'm getting sick of the original flavours.
I'm not sick of Whipped Potatoes, probably never will. A large Whipped Potato is not an option when I order KFC Delivery, it's a necessity! The chickens are just a bonus.
Second is the messy packaging. By "messy" I mean crumbs dropping everywhere. The boxes they put the chicken in are useless. They might as well just throw them straight into plastic bags because at least they don't leak! The big cardboard boxes for only chickens aren't so bad, but the last time I ordered KFC, that thing was covered with tiny crumbs that rolled off when I opened the lid.
The Ultimate Value Boxes are the worst. The basic design of the paper box did not take into account the crumbs that often drop off the chicken parts. Whoever designed it obviously had the engineering knowledge but not the frickin intelligence. I'm not even going talk about the management people who approved this moronic object. Really, how did so many people convince themselves that the sieve is a box? Do they pour flour through a box when they bake cakes at home?
If you have never tried baking stuff at home you probably wouldn't get that. So for you guys I'll explain it. When you make dough or batter with flour, you have to sieve it so that the clumps are separated and re-pulverized. If you don't sieve your flour as you mix it with the liquid, you're going to have lots of hard bits in your final product.
Don't get me wrong - it's not all bad. I like how their chicken stay crunchy for days in the fridge. True, they get a bit soggy, but if you bake it in a conventional oven it regains a little more crunch. Not true for Original Recipe (OR) chicken though. That one gets soggy in the fridge and stays soggy.
The coleslaw is very convenient since it's supposed to be served cold. Whipped Potatoes, on the other hand, must never be served cold. It tastes a little funky when eaten straight from the fridge.
What I do is I microwave it for 10-15s in its original microwave-unsafe cup right from the fridge. It should get a little warm on one side. I then stir it all up. No choice, that's the only way to warm it up evenly without having to wash a bowl later on. Then I microwave it again for about 5-10s, depending on the size of the cup. Stir again. Then another 5-10s. Stir again and I get a room-temperature or slightly warm cup of Whipped Potato, and I won't have to get my fingers all dried up by detergent later.
I dislike washing dishes. Either I suffer the dry skin or I suffer a minute or so of doing absolutely nothing while staring at my monitor. I can't stand seeing my screen and not being able to hold my mouse just because I have to wait for the moisturizer on my hands to dry.
I wish Long John Silver and Burger King would start delivery services. I've been waiting for BK to deliver for so long.
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