Finding a good fast food place that doesn't completely drain your wallet is tough. And the places that usually have good fast food at very cheap comes with side effects that most of us prefer to stay away from.
Soul Chicken in the MAGA building happens to belong to the former category of places that serve up cheap fast food at what seemed to be close to or no side effects of the variety we spoke about earlier.
Ambience
Finding Soul Chicken was a task in itself. Now, we didn't know that Soul Chicken was in the MAGA building. So, after walking around aimlessly in the rain for a solid 5 minutes and coming up empty, we decided to speak to the security. He didn't know what Soul Chicken was, but he did know that there was a chicken place in the food court, which is how we even ended up there.
A canal fronted air-conditioned space that's cleaner than any other food court in the country, the ambience is all right. It faces a canal so if you're looking for a meal with a view, we suggest dropping in when the sun's out. If you're not so keen on the view, then you're all set.
The dining area is essentially just a giant bit of space with tables and chairs littered around for people to get their food on. However, deathly quiet with very dimmed out lighting and a fancy piece of art on one side, it doesn't scream the usual gorily-happy-spectacle most fast food places opt for. Instead, it vibes off to a more post-apocalyptic food court scenario straight out of WALL-E, if you know what I mean.
Food
While you'd assume that Soul Chicken sticks to just plain old chicken, they do not. Instead, they do a whole set of stuff from rice to cheesecake to fried chicken. However, the day we went, the only thing up for grabs was their line of burgers.
We kicked things off with one of their Original Soul Burgers (Rs.220) served with a side of Onion Rings (Rs. 100).
Coming in as a deliciously soft bun that's moist in just the right places, the Original Soul Burger was basically just a cocktail of fried chicken, lettuce, cheese and a strange mayo-onion concoction. The piece of chicken was not too big, neither was it too small. Deep-fried to a crunch, it worked really well with the lettuce and cheese. What made us question it all was that mayo-onion mix. It gave off a strange taste that none of us could quite place a finger on.
The onion rings, on the other hand, were brilliant. With a thick layer of batter encasing the onion, the serving was big and the onion had been cooked quite well on the inside as well. If you do happen to go to Soul Chicken, we suggest you order this.
The Saddest looking of the lot was the Griller (Rs. 180). Packed in between two incredibly soft buns, the grilled chicken wasn't all that thick and didn't have too much flavour involved. We say this because while this particular burger didn't have cheese, it did have the Mayo-onion thing which completely overpowered the taste of the chicken. Which we weren't the biggest fans of.
The Serving of French Fries (Rs. 150) wasn't all that great either. A tad too crunchy, the fries were your everyday store-bought fries and had nothing special about it. Thus why we say again – go for the Onion Rings, it's a better deal.
The Soul Crunch (Rs. 300) was more or less the same thing as the Original, just bigger. Cheese, lettuce, a hint of something that we assume is pickles and that mayo-onion thing topped off with the same kind of buns as before, we liked it. It's not every day that you find a burger this big for Rs. 300. And the only thing that killed it was the mayo-onion thing. Apart from that, the burger was lovely.
They've also got Soft Serve Vanilla Ice Cream which they sell at Rs. 60 a pop so you might want to check it out.
Service
The staff at Soul Chicken turned out to be really nice and pretty friendly throughout. The only problem we had was with the fact that they took like 20-30 mins to get our order through.
Conclusion
Soul Chicken does some okay burgers for very cheap. The only real issue we had with them was the whole deal with the strange taste that seemed to follow the burgers, but apart from that, they do an okay burger.
However, we should warn you that we had heard that the nature of their bun isn't all that consistent in terms of being fresh. So, hope for the best before you leave and you might get lucky.
