Applebee's, Omnipresent

Go to any city, in any state, and there will probably be an Applebee's, and their Chicken Fingers will kick ass. The chicken is well-seasoned, well-breaded, and consistently cooked well. That isn't to say they are the best, however; if somebody was to give me a choice between Applebee's or Seven Saint's Chicken Fingers, I'd almost certainly take Seven Saint's.

HOWEVER, I do not judge the Chicken Fingers alone. It is fundamentally necessary to judge the entire Chicken Finger trinity (with fries and BBQ sauce), and Applebee's fries are what make the combo truly worthwhile. Simply put, they are the best that the food group has to offer. The BBQ sauce is equally amazing.

Chicken Fingers- A
Fries A+
BBQ- A

Overall- A

Seven Saints, Champaign, Illinois

You wouldn't expect much from a bar, but these are the best damn Chicken Fingers I've ever eaten.

You only get three, but all in all it is a substantially larger meal than you could get anywhere else. These fuckers are thick, juicy, and have outstanding breading as well. Similar praise can be tossed towards their BBQ sauce, though that is a field in which it is much harder to be notable.

If there is a weakness of the combo, it is their waffle fries, they are still pretty damn good.

Chicken Fingers- A+
BBQ Sauce- A
Fries- A

Overall- A+
The best I've ever had.

China House, DeKalb, Illinois

Who the hell goes to a Chinese buffet and gets Chicken Fingers?

Me.

They have no BBQ sauce or french fries, but that's some damn good chicken as part of a six dollar buffet. I will gladly pay six bucks for pocket fulls of that chicken, any day.

Rating: B-, though that score is meaningless due to being skew of the originally outlined grading scale.

I admit it- I'm a picky bastard, and I'm likely to hate nearly everything that is put on my plate. The only reason I haven't starved to death is because virtually all restaurants, no matter their ethnic origin, have some form of breaded chicken.

Collectively, I refer to these breaded chicken products as 'Chicken Fingers', though the nomenclature varies from restaurant to restaurant and language to language. Katsu, Tenders, Fritters, Tenderloinds- all are acceptable.

I am the world's leading connosieur of Chicken Fingers, and I use a structured method when judging any new CF that I come across. The overall quality of a Chicken Finger meal is a product of the three main components to a CF meal, being-

1) The Chicken Fingers themselves. How good is the breading, how meaty is the chicken?

2) The French Fries. Chicken Fingers without French Fries is a sin against humanity.

3) The Barbaque sauce. Chicken Fingers and Fries without barbaque sauce is like French Fries with pickle juice. KETCHUP IS NOT A VALID SUBSTITUTE.

These are the three parts of a great Chicken Fingers meal, and a failure in one area can make the entire meal wretched.

This blog will detail my world travels and the Chicken Fingers that I come across.