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.

Takeaways unofficially endorsed by South Korean consumer electronic giants #1: Samsun Steak & Kebab Restaurant

Terrorists, politicians, cartoon characters, they've all had takeaways named after them, but Samsung, we honestly weren't expecting. Spelt wrong too. The food here comes with a two year warranty, you know.

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Unless someone finds an LG Fried Chicken, we suspect this may be a very occasional feature.

Mockney phrases make for the best pub names

This is where you go to drink when you're in trouble with the ol' ball and chain. You'll have a pint or nine with the boys, all have a big bitch about respective strifes, then go crawling back. Cos it's the dog'owse.

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Man mugged for kebab, sign of times

Time was, you'd get mugged for your phone. You might get stopped walking through a subway at 8 in the evening by a gentleman in a hooded sweatshirt:"Oi blad, you got the time on your phone?". Now though, a young rapscallion doesn't have any respect without a doner of his very own: Cambridge Evening News reports a man was mugged at knife point for his kebab.

If it was us? We'd "jack" someone's iPhone, flog it on eBay and buy several mixed grills instead. But then maybe that sort of outside the box thinking is why we don't hide in bushes for food.

How do you name a chicken shop today? Crowdsource it, bitch

Not all takeaways have grasped how the internet works, but a few entrepreneurial sorts are taking a few, shaky steps into the world of web 2.0. First we had the chicken shack with its own MySpace profile, and now we've got another place getting in on the latest web buzzword, crowdsourcing, which is another way of saying fuck it off, let's get some chat room flies to do our work for us.
One Yahoo forums peep turned to the message boards to come up with a name for their potential new chicken shop, and the suggestions make for interesting reading:
Naturally you've got the naively earnest type who fails to grasp the innate comedy value in chicken shops (A woman, I might add).
Then you've got the "joker". They're only in their teens now, but later in life they'll wear novelty ties to work and buy a singing fish trophy off eBay for the nostalgia value. Then they'll put it on the wall of their cubicle at work, but without the battery, because the boss wouldn't want it going off in the middle of a meeting about the best way to market fire alarms to the consumer.

But, as always with the internet, it does come down to one thing though: sex. God bless you, Tim Bernard-Matthews or whatever your name is.
Is it wrong that I'm turned on by women suggesting euphemisms for chicken shops? I think it is.

This chicken shop has a MySpace profile, and it is awesome

I have to fess up: sometimes, I just type "fried chicken" into Google Maps along with a place name and see what comes up. It's sad, yes. It's the web 2.0 version of stamp collecting. But man, look what I found:
Wings N Tingz. Niccceeee. What "tingz" though? And why isn't it on Street View if it's in the country's second city? I don't know, but to make amends for that, the owner has given the shop its own MySpace profile. With a logo that is just fitness:
I've never met the chicken, but you can tell he's the avian equivalent of one of those Iranian expats who greases his hair, drives around in a 1994 Audi with leather upholstery and can generally be found chirpsing all the flyest Persian honeys on the Edgware Road.

It gets better though, check out the comments:
Oh Kiesha. Wings N Tingz can't possibly "roll through your spot" and show you any love BECAUSE IT IS A BUILDING AND CAN'T MOVE. Also note that no-one's said anything for over a year.

Wings N Tingz should totally join FaceBook, MySpace is sooo 2005. Then we can poke each other and play Scrabble over a few virtual spicy wings.

XFC Chicken & Burgers, Southall

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What does the X stand for? XTREME! Dude!! Tony Hawk eats here. And they only serve Pepsi Max.

Chicken: The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast

You know I how was saying that Germany had the best regional variation of any multi-nation fast food chain? Well, McDonalds in Holland is hitting back in style. Snapped in Amsterdam:In Holland McD's do a Chicken McMuffin. That's right: Chicken for Breakfast! My mind is blown. Literally blown. There are literally bits of brain all over the wall behind me. I've taken the red pill. This is how deep the rabbit hole goes, people.