KFC 4290 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92117

"I was looking forward to the biscuits most of all. Two of my biscuits were old and stale. When I tried to break them open to add butter they broke into pieces like rocks. Ruined my lunch. Didn't want to drive back for replacements."

"The black woman who claims she is a manager on duty did a horrible job in a customer service. She doesn’t know what it is keeping customer happy means in the way serve the right food on the right time."

"The WORST KFC in Southern California.. I ordered a 2 piece meal and had a long HAIR in my coleslaw.. I called that night.. the lady was apologetic and offered me another meal.. she said come within the week.. I went the next day and they treated me like I was a liar, homeless and trying to eat free.. I haven’t even got my money back and that was AFTER I called corporate!! The manager left ONE message and when I called she’s not available!! I will NEVER go back here and you shouldn’t either!!"

"Our cashier was amazing and very patient with us--i wish I had gotten his name. Quality of food sucked. We spent $80 and the tenders we luke warm at best. We live 5min away so it wasn't the drive home. We also bought a 24 piece all dark meal --and we got lots of white meat--not a bonus--and unwanted."

"KFC was known in my childhood as "Kentucky Fried Chicken," a fast food joint that was "finger lickin' good" due to Colonel Harland Sanders' no-longer-secret fried chicken batter recipe and its famed 11 herbs and spices. A bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken on the dining table used to be a genuine treat when I was a young boy, long before a consortium of slick, carpet-bagging MBAs from up north renamed it, re-branded it, and figured out how to grow and raise genetically-mutated poultry on metal rods without feet, beaks, spines, or nervous systems, while pumping liquid hormones, pesticides, and carcinogens directly into their veins. This was also before KFCs like this location in Clairemont began sharing kitchens with Taco Bell, a chain restaurant known for purveying powerful, exotic laxatives. KFC's most redeeming quality is that the food is both filling and cheap, and the cheapest way to eat pressure-fried chicken and a biscuit at KFC at present seems to be their "Fill Up Box" value meals. For $5.49, the Fill Up Box includes your chicken selection of choice, an 8oz container of mashed potatoes and gravy, a biscuit, a medium soft drink, and a chocolate chip cookie. For purposes of this review, I ordered both the 2 Piece (Leg and Thigh) Original Recipe and the 1 Piece (Breast) Extra Crispy Recipe. My Original Recipe pieces were coated in a soft and finely textured batter. Very well-seasoned, with lots of salt, but my goodness it is just so very greasy, resulting in a soggy coating that one does not associate with fried chicken. The taste was not horrible, and the chicken was anything but dry, with the melted fat from the dark meat making the oily chicken even greasier. If I had any issues with the flavor it was that the chicken almost tastes over-salted and my tastebuds felt brutally assaulted by heaps of MSG and oil. Extra Crispy is even saltier and, yes, it is much crispier. The late Colonel Sanders despised the Extra Crispy recipe, once publicly denouncing it as "a damn fried doughball stuck on some chicken." Most people would concur with the Colonel that the batter is very thick, to the point where you could feasibly bite into a piece of Extra Crispy fried chicken without your teeth hitting any meat. I much prefer KFC's Original Recipe, despite the sogginess of the coating and all of the grease. Of course, you can't have KFC's chicken without a signature cup of their instant-cook mashed potatoes covered with a lake of KFC's MSG-spiked gravy. Again, Colonel Sanders publicly said it best himself, "my God, that gravy is horrible," before suing KFC's parent company in the 70s for continuing to misuse his likeness to promote awful food products that he didn't actually develop. The problem with KFC's gravy is that it has no essence of meat or vegetables in it and tastes only of starch, salt, and MSG. This brings me to the biscuit, which I don't think is awful. KFC's biscuit is not very flaky -- it achieves a lighter and more pillowy feel than most biscuits. Also, unlike other biscuits, it has an unusual lack of crispness on its sides, most likely because they're baked touching each other. Fluffiness is KFC's biscuit's signature, as is the very high amount of salt. The less I write about the bizarre and inexplicable "freshly baked" Chocolate Chip Cookie in my "Fill Up Box" the better. I'll conclude this by stating that, despite the icky food, KFC plays an important role in our world -- as Milton once wrote, there is no heaven without hell. This represents the alternative to responsible sourcing and disciplined cooking techniques."