Battle of the Mustachioed Chicken Merchants

Since the moment sometime in the late 90’s when the fish and chips shops and MacDonald’s of the world were challenged for the throne of food court supremacy, the kingdom of fast food has become an infinitely more multicultural place. Invading hordes of pita wrapped and ambiguously meated Turks battle the new svelte brand of American warriors, each of whom purportedly contain six grams of fat or less. In turn the Americans are under siege from an ever increasingly well supported clan whose fusion of seaweed, rice and raw fish are winning hearts and minds despite its lack of flavor and inability to satisfactorily fill a stomach.

All of this is but a distraction from the main theater of war, for the gourmet and the out of shape, lazy, bong smoking student alike understand that the Portuguese alone hold the keys to flavor country. In much the same way a disaffected youth is drawn to radical Islam but faces the quandary of whether to align themselves with the Sunni or the Shiite, so too is the connoisseur of chili chicken burgers torn between the two great branches of the discipline. To Nandos or to Oporto? That is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of spending an outrageous fortune at Nandos but receive a fillet of something that is recognisably from a chicken, or to try your luck with Oporto which while easily Nando’s equal in the flavor department is made of something that resembles a chicken’s anorexic cousin.

The fight for the chili chicken dollar is a microcosm of the fast food industry in general. What do people really want? Are they willing to sacrifice quality in order to eat quickly and cheaply? Nandos and Oporto, while offering similar products are servicing slightly different clienteles. People who are impressed with table service and numbers made out of ugly, garish wooden chickens will invariably aim for the Nandos while people who want their hot ass chicken flavored sandwich and want it now will go down the Oporto path.

It’s all a moot point for me. At $8 even the Oporto is out of reach for the stingy