Dwight Yoakam’s Chicken Lickin’s - Chicken Fries
Dwight Yoakam’s Chicken Lickin’s - Buffalo Bites
Dwight Yoakam’s Take ‘Ems - Macaroni Mouth Poppers
Bakersfield Biscuits
$1.00 ea.

So the other day I was at Walgreen’s for a late-night Benadryl Allergy Kapseals run, and as always, I strayed over to the cooler/freezer case to pick up a bottle of a mysterious yet delicious Walgreen’s-brand concoction known simply as “Red Soda”. On my way over, something in the freezer case caught my attention—a seemingly entire line of one-dollar frozen snacks being marketed by one popular country singer known as Dwight Yoakam, and his Bakersfield Biscuits brand.

I pictured Dwight Yoakam in my head, and I thought to myself, “I’ll bet that guy wouldn’t put his name on crappy food. He just has that look about him. Plus, he did a pretty decent cover of ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’. In fact, being the lax country music fan that I am, that’s really the only song that I can name off that he did. Oops. But it was pretty good nonetheless. While I’m here I should probably pick up some toothpaste, too. I really hope they have that vanilla-mint-flavored Crest that I like.”

In the mood for a late-night snack, I grabbed the first three boxes I saw and headed home to fire up the oven (since all three items were breaded, I opted against the microwave). Upon doing further research into the brand and the man behind it, I realized that when I was picturing Dwight Yoakam in my head that I had actually been picturing Alan Jackson, thus throwing off a great deal of my justification behind buying these foodstuffs. Even though Dwight Yoakam admittedly doesn’t look as trustworthy as Alan Jackson, I then came to the realization that a great deal of the characters working the graveyard shift at the local White Castle look like they got shipped in directly from The Island of Misfit Fast-Food Employees. I’d never let any of these people anywhere near my home and valuables, yet I continue to go back there and let them serve me burgers. That may or may not have something to do with the fact that I’m usually a little sauced, but I digress…

I cooked the Buffalo Bites (along with the Chicken Fries, which I’ll get to in a bit) for about 11 minutes at 425 degrees. I got five small pieces shaped like chicken wings and legs, which were covered in a relatively spicy breading—I’ve got a pretty high threshold for spicy food, but any casual spicy food eater shouldn’t be in any discomfort. The chicken contained inside the breading was your run-of-the-mill processed deal, which is pretty much par for the course, and combined with the flavor of breading they were pretty decent. I complemented them with ranch and they were perfectly acceptable.

As aforementioned, I cooked the Buffalo Bites with the Chicken Fries. Yes, taking a page from the book of Burger King, Dwight Yoakam has also got Chicken Fries in his culinary arsenal, and much like the Burger King ones, I really wasn’t all that impressed. I ended up burning half of the batch and the ones I burned actually tasted significantly better, since they otherwise didn’t have much of a taste. The chicken contained inside the breading was the same as with the Buffalo Bites, so in order to really be anything of note, something needed to be done about the breading. It was not. The breading was similar to that found on store-brand fish sticks, except those tend to have a thicker smattering of it, at least making them pretty crispy. Luckily, I had some buffalo sauce on-hand, but I shouldn’t have to drown something in sauce to make it worth my time.

Such was also the case with the Macaroni Mouth Poppers—again, we had a rather insipid breading, this time wrapped around warm clusters of macaroni and cheese. The idea was great, and has actually been done before by T.G.I. Friday’s, if I’m not mistaken; these were perfectly adequate, with nothing making me either particularly excited or repulsed. I was, however, slightly irritated that I had to set the oven (or rather, wait for it to cool down) to 350 when the the two chicken items were able to be cooked together at 425. As a result, I had to make a second run with the oven for a package containing six Poppers. Since they weren’t really anything to write home about (even if they had been, I was already home, so that would’ve been difficult), having to wait ten minutes for six little pieces was a waste. Yes, I could have microwaved all of these, but then they would have soggy on top of everything, which would have probably pissed me off more than having to wait the extra eight miutes. I realize that the package is only a dollar, and that’s an advantage, and therefore it’s a smaller helping, but that’s ten minutes of my life that I’ll never get back. Thanks, Dwight Yoakam. Thanks a lot. Alan Jackson wouldn’t have let me down like this.

So basically nothing really rocked my taste buds, but the price was pretty nice at three dollars total for the trifecta. Then again, for three dollars I could have also gotten four bacon cheeseburgers at White Castle (courtesy of The Island of Misfit Fast-Food Employees), which not only would have tasted better (with a side of Dusseldorf mustard) but would have also filled me up much more sufficiently, not to mention that I wouldn’t have had to wait for two oven cycles at a total of about 20 minutes. If you happen to find yourself at Walgreen’s sometime and are looking for a late-night snack, spend the three bucks on the large bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos instead.

Rating:
Buffalo Bites:
Chicken Fries:
Macaroni Mouth Poppers: