I pity the fool who misappropriates Mr T's name for a temporary take-away stall on a bank holiday in West London

Spotted at the Notting Hill Carnival:Every bit of jerk chicken comes with a glass of milk. And after drinking it, you mysteriously find yourself on an airplane. Every single week.

Remember how now one ever died on the A-Team? Ironic this was at the Notting Hill Carnival, then.

Red Rooster, Mill Hill

Today's chicken shop is brought to you by the letter 'R'. The letter 'R' dressed as a chicken, mind.

Kentucky really doesn't have very many fried chicken shops

Well known fact: Kentucky Fried Chicken is one of the world's biggest fast food chains (with 24,000 employees worldwide).

Not so well known fact: Kentucky isn't quite the home of fried chicken it purports to be.

Here's Frankfort, the state capital of Kentucky, US of A:

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As you can see, it appears to have just two chicken shops. First is the promising Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken:

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It is in fact a Burger King.

Then there's a Kentucky Fried Chicken. You'd have thought it'd be the flagship branch, the beating heart and soul of the franchise, right? Nope, it's actually an abandoned petrol station:

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And that's it. That, or Google Maps isn't to be totally relied upon, but are you seriously questioning its reliability? Ayo Google Maps is the best, true dat.

Strangely, the first KFC ever opened was in Utah. Someone even took a photo of a piece of wall that proves it.

Takeaways named after movies #2: El Mariachi

Now, I'm not liking the lack of food-based puns, but this Robert Rodriguez inspired restaurant has a few big selling points in my book.

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First up, there's the awful slogan along the top (Don't siesta - let's fiesta), which ranks up there with the Chinese translation of McDonald's I'm Lovin' It ("I just like it"). Then there's the cactus with a sombrero floating inexplicably above it, like a Hispanic UFO looking for work:
Sorry, that was a bit out of order, wasn't it? I didn't mean it. But what's won me over is the shop it's next to:

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FIREPLACE WORLD! Just think of the day out you and your family could have on the Richmond Road with attractions like this.

Grammatical outrage! This chicken shop gots a tautology in it!

Spotted on the bus to Kingston:

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Now, unless the owner thinks Kingston is spelled with a C, we're at a loss as to what CFC Fried Chicken stands for. I can't be bothered to ring the number on the sign, so by process of elimination, we're left with the only ridiculous conclusion: this shop is actually called Chicken Fried Chicken Fried Chicken. What? This has all gone too far.

In an aside, I love that Google Maps has failed to mask the fact that the girl with the folder clearly does GCSE Art.

Thanks to Denis for this one, currently skiving off curing cancer (No, really) to send us the URL.

Spud's cafe has a poor, abused potato for a mascot

Spotted around Kingston way, Spuds Cafe seems cheery enough at first. What a jolly potato that is waving at you as you pass by. But wait, what's wrong with his eye?
Ah, yes, he's been beaten and abused by the owner, like so many other mascots before him, and the jovial wave is actually a desperate cry for help. Someone call the social so they can "take away" him. You see what I did there?

Toast Club's mascot needs a diet, shave, and blood pressure check-up

We've seen curious takeaway shop mascots in the past. There was gay chicken, Arab chicken, and the Iraqi Colonel Sanders who appeared to have been interred in Abu Ghraib at some point. None of them were particularly enticing, but they definitely make me hungrier than this chap emblazoned on the sign of a kebab shop on the Greek island of Santorini.
He looks like the dude off the Pringles tubes after bingeing on the BBQ flavour for two decades and only trimming his 'tache when drunk. And what's with the name Toast Club anyway? It sounds like a takeaway run by a gang of Enid Blyton-esque children and their faithful hound (Probably called Rex or Elizabeth or something), except here it's probably the pooch being served up in a pita.

Perfect Spice, Bethnal Green

You think it's just going to be another Perfect Fried Chicken, but then it pulls 'Perfect Spice' out of the bag. Nice.

American TASTEE Chicken & Ribs

Pop quiz, hotshot.

Does the extra 'E' stand for:

a) Extra Hot
b) Excellent
c) Ecstasy
d) Former Sheffield Wednesday and Wimbeldon striker Efan Ekoko
e) Extra

Answers on a postcard.

Maddy McCann was probably kidnapped in this Cheetos van

As spotted in a Mediterranean resort. They don't sell Frazzles on the continent so Cheetos are the paedophile's crisps of choice by default. It's strange that the McCann's spokesperson hasn't ever mentioned it, seeing how conspicuous it is. I imagine the driver looks like a cross between the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the anthropomorphic leopard from the Cheetos packet, which would be funny were it not for the fact that there's probably a semi-professional photography studio and a set of rusty, unwashed hacksaws in the back of the van.

What? Too soon?

Belgians like their fast food to urinate on them

First, a bit of culture: Are you aware the Manneken Pis? It's a fountain/statue in Brussels of a small boy having a piddle into a pool.From Wikipedia: "Manneken Pis (help·info) (Dutch for little man urinating), also known in French as the petit Julien, is a famous Brussels landmark. It is a small bronze fountain sculpture depicting a naked little boy urinating into the fountain's basin.

The famous statue is located at the junction of Rue de l'Étuve/Stoofstraat and Rue du Chêne/Eikstraat. To find it, one takes the left lane next to the Brussels Town Hall from the famous Grand Place and walks a few hundred meters to arrive at the spot. The statue will be on the left corner."

And then, just down the road is this sign:Apparently R Kelly loves this place.


Thanks to Sanjay for the spot.

LOL Chicken Shops

Could it be the hot new internet meme of 2009?

Perfect Fried Chicken Winter Collection 2009

Does the modern high street in Britain depress you? Rows of identical chain stores over and over? TK Maxx followed by Primark followed by McDonalds followed by Primark again followed by Greggs? Where's the local character gone?

Well, then thank god for Perfect Fried Chicken.

Now I don't know if it's a franchise or not. I tried to do a bit of research online, but Gossip Girl is on ITV2 at the moment and I got distracted. But each different Perfect Fried Chicken has its own look, its own character. Look at these two, only about 1km apart in Aldgate, East London.

FC Hottest Chicken ...in Town Restaurant & Take Away & Delivery, Amsterdam

Man, following their revolutionary McDonalds menu, the Dutch are on fire. Spotted in Amsterdam:You really do sometimes have to explore foreign cultures to find something special. They are letting the side down slightly with tarpaulin sheet, as opposed to a plastic neon fascia, but this one scores on so many levels. Overly cluttered sign. Dubious use of punctuation. Delusions of grandeur, calling themselves a 'restaurant'. And quite simply, the best chicken on a sign yet. It looks so happy, yet slightly retarded. Like a kid with Down's syndrome on a day trip to the zoo. And he's wearing a rainbow waistcoat! It's clearly painted on, so this isn't a fly by night operation as the temporary sign might suggest.

Thanks to Stef for the spot, and for bringing so much joy into my life.

Pizza Jim sounds horribly mundane

Jim (I'm assuming that's the owner's name) didn't really push the boat out when it came to striking out on his own and setting up a takeaway. If we had to judge a person by his business's sign, we'd guess that he's had a season ticket to Sheffield United for the last 20 years (Standing, until it all got converted to seating) and worked in a small burglar alarm business just off the ringroad outside Doncaster all of his life, and barely been promoted the entire time. He's also been on holiday to Tenerife once, but it was too hot and he didn't like the food. In a mid-life crisis, he decided to turn his fate around, snapped up this place and after a long brainstorm and flash of inspiration, chose Pizza Jim over other frontrunners like "Pizza Hutch" and "Pizza".

We're guessing.

The world's campest chicken shop signage

OOOOOO Spicy!

Stone Willy's, Clapham

Take-aways in Clapham are off the chain.

Just check this place out. It's insane.First of all, you might as well call it Concrete Penis Pizza. My next concern would be the offer of 'Chicken and Jacs'. What the name of Adam West are Jacs? I googled 'chicken jacs' and all that came up was bleeding dog food!

The fact it also seems to be a joint venture between Stone Willy's and late-70's disco group Shalamar is also rather mystifying. It's hardly a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell now, is it? You can't really have a novelty pop-rap crossover hit about the 'Combination Stone Willy's and Shalamar'. But if by chance Dizzee Rascal and Calvin Harris do and make it the anthem of the summer, I want 15% of the royalties.Then, on the left, is this sign. A design classic I think you'll agree, even if there is an erroneous hyphen in 'TO-GO'. I also like the guy sticking his head out the door doing a John Cena impression. (And yes I did go back to this at night to take another photo).

And then it gets weird.This is the sign on the right hand side. WHO THE HELL IS THIS GUY? He looks like an Iraqi Colonel Sanders. As played by the love child of Christopher Lee, Borat and Salvador Dali. And what has he been doing since 1972? Secretly infiltrating the world's government's with his concrete penis, I mean, Stone Willy?
It's so hypnotic. The more you stare at hi, the worse it gets.ALL HAIL IRAQI SANDERS! ALL HAIL IRAQI SANDERS! o/ (That's an emoticon for a salute, by the way)

This isn't just fried chicken. It's Nagina fried chicken...

This place is Nagina in Southall. And it is, without a shadow of a doubt, the classiest chicken venue I have ever laid eyes upon. It's miles from your bog standard grubby Chicken Cottage. Sleek white marble effect decor. Classy gold writing. Spacious open plan-style windows that have a complete lack of duct tape holding them together after a bit of a scuffle last Friday night. It is a chicken shop for people who shop at Waitrose and eat Walkers Sensations.

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Shame from the wrong angle 'Nagina' can look like 'Vagina' though.

This is what Boris Johnson looks like on a KFC Bucket

Have you ever wondered what the bumbling mayor of London looks like dressed as Colonel Sanders on a KFC bucket? No? Well, now you know:
Surprisingly, he looks even more like the goateed dick from The Matrix Reloaded than the father of KFC himself. You can have a go at KFC's silly marketing ploy here, which just about makes up for the grilled chicken debacle, but not quite.

Yet another chicken shop named after a rapper

We've had Cypress Hill, we've had Coolio, and now:

Fig a) Critically acclaimed New York rapper Nas:
Fig b) Nass Fast Food, Hounslow

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Ok, there is an extra 'S'. But their burgers are Grillmatic.