As a DMV (District, Maryland, Virginia) native, I know chicken. Nearly every restaurant has its take on a chicken recipe. The foreign restaurants from India, South Africa, and Peru all add their traditional spices and curries to the piece of poultry as they cook it. But if you are in too much of a hurry to sit down at a restaurant, a franchise called Chick-fil-A will suffice.

Everyone who frequents Chick-fil-A has come to fear Sundays due to the lack of hot-but-not-too-spicy chicken in a bun. Chick-fil-A is so renowned that people have chosen to overlook their devious business practices to get a taste of their luscious meal combos. As you can see, this restaurant is so tasty and delectable that even the most staunchly politically-correct individuals have to give in once in a while to get a taste of their fowl food.

When I was plucked from my DC neighborhood, with two Chick-fil-As, and countless other chicken restaurants in walking distance, I decided that I needed to embark on a quest to find a great chicken meal. I have been craving a nice juicy, yet still crunchy piece of chicken lately, and therefore have been asking around. All of my friends and teammates said the same thing: Caine’s Chicken. They had been raving about it for so long, I decided that enough was enough, I needed to try it.

The quest was in vain, however, because even though I, a starving teenager who had just come from a swim meet (and was hungrier than usual since I fast before my races) and is known to have no standards after going this long without food, couldn’t even finish the meal.

When my mother and I pulled up to the window, we ordered 6 pieces of chicken, 1 order of fries, and 2 pieces of that Texas toast. The first thing that I had a bite of was the Texas toast, which I give 2.5 stars due to its chewy, yet still crumbly nature. While one side of the toast satisfied my cravings for greasy food, it still barely had flavor or character. Promptly after I had stuffed my face full of mediocre fried bread, I moved on to the chicken fingers. 

These, too, satisfied my stomach, but not the taste buds with their cardboard-like flavor. However, this is exactly why they have the dipping sauce. If you do plan on going to Caine’s and you enjoy spicy food, I recommend bringing along a thing of hot sauce so that you can mix this into the dipping sauce to give it an extra boost.

The dipping sauce by itself, however, was mediocre as well. It was pretty obvious that it was some kind of salad dressing mixed with mayonnaise and way too much salt and pepper. However, I will give the dipping sauce a 3, for these purposes, it added some(but not much) flavor and moistness to my meal. Lastly, I tried the fries. 

Like most people, I eat when I’m bored, and bored I was on this hour-long ride home. Sadly, I ate the entire thing of fries, even though, normally, I would have thrown that trash away. One, I was still hungry, 2, I had ketchup, and 3, I was bored- due to these factors I gave the fries a one. I am not a fan of McDonald’s and haven’t gone there in over a year, but even their fries are better than Caine’s.

 In conclusion, I give Caine’s a 3/10, it is great if you are hungry on the go, but not for anything else.