We tried all of the KFC South Africa Kentucky Town speciality items

Every year or so KFC South Africa will roll out the Kentucky Town branding for a few special items. Sometimes these items are only available in a special popup location (the Kentucky Town) but other items the items are simply available at regular stores. 

Thankfully, for mid-2024, it is the latter situation and you should be able to visit your local KFC branch to try out these limited-time items, though not every branch is included. If you’re going to order in person, give the branch a call before you make the drive. That’s exactly what we did this past weekend where we bought one of each to try and report back on what’s worth your money. 

On that note the Kentucky Town items this time around includes five items, ranging in price between R30 and R65. On the advertising for the three food items a regular chips is offered as an addition for R20 extra. We’re not sure why they didn’t offer one of the food items bundled with a special drink and some chips as a meal, but you can always order them separately and do it yourself.

It’s Gravy Baby 

Of all the speciality items this one is the most boring. It’s Gravy Baby is simply a regular cheese burger, plus a hash brown and a side of gravy that you’re supposed to pour onto your burger. 

The gravy comes in its own small container and it’s worth mentioning that there’s no mashed potato, it’s all gravy. 

Because we’ve had a cheeseburger with a hash brown from KFC several times before – this was once advertised as a “Tower Burger” – we knew exactly what to expect here. We’ve never had gravy on a Tower Burger before so that was the only new element here and, eh, it was fine. 

The Tower Burger is already so savoury that adding gravy on top isn’t the best choice. What we ended up doing is saving some of the gravy to dip chips into, which was a much better choice. 

It’s Gravy Baby isn’t too exciting and we’ve seen, and tasted most of it before, so it’s not worth rushing out to get. 

Doughnut Zinger Burger

The Doughnut Zinger Burger is arguably the most eye catching of these three. It is essentially another burger but the buns have been swapped out with glazed donuts. 

It’s a staple of Kentucky Town and KFC will usually include this item at other limited time events, like its stand at Comic Con Africa. 

The Doughnut Zinger Burger really lives up to the hype. We complained that the It’s Gravy Baby burger was savoury on savoury, but the Doughnut Zinger Burger mends that by adding a lot of sweetness into the equation with those doughnuts. 

Unfortunately the burger, or whatever this monstrosity can be called, is a bit on the dry side. The glazing of the donuts helps a bit with that, but it’s literally just two donuts and a piece of fried chicken with nothing else. A tiny bit of sauce would have gone a long way. 

This gets our recommendation, even if it’s just for the novelty. If you’re out with some friends a single order can be cut into two or even three or four (small) pieces so everyone can have a taste. 

Crunch Double Down

The Crunch Double Down is another case of making a sandwich or burger, but swapping out the bread roll for something wacky. This time, instead of the bun, you get two fried chicken breasts. Between them is a slice of cheese, a hash brown, “Hot and Spicy sauce”, a tomato and some onions. Our order had no hash brown in the middle though, our branch simply forgot to put it on, so we didn’t get the full experience.

Lack of hash brown aside, before we could eat this one we were a bit shocked by how small it is. The Crunch Double Down is noticeably smaller than both of the other items on this list. We’re not sure if the chicken breasts used on ours just happened to be small, or if this will happen to all customers, but it’s worth mentioning. It could also be that the size of a chicken breast is harder to control than bread rolls or doughnuts. 

Despite the small size this is another winner. The taste is surprisingly balanced and the chicken doesn’t overwhelm the experience. Hot sauce tolerance is incredibly subjective but it was tolerable for this writer who rarely eats anything hot and can barely get through even the mild stuff. 

We did have a chuckle when eating this thinking that it’s a good alternative for those who still want the burger or sandwich experience while trying to cut down on eating bread. This definitely isn’t a diet option, but this insane piece of fast food is actually good enough to consider for that niche roll. Of everything here the Crunch Double Down would be most welcome as a permanent menu item.

Cherry Cola Boba

This one is exactly what it says on the tin: a cherry carbonated drink with boba balls at the bottom. Before we get to how it tastes, we have to mention that the KFC straws are not wide enough to suck up even these smaller boba, so you need to have an alternative on hand to properly drink this thing.

The cherry drink part of this is very generic and forgetful, while the boba tastes like mixed berries. Combine them and you have the weird sensation of carbonation with boba that we’re not entirely used to. Maybe it’s a thing in other countries but we’re far more used to teas and juices instead.

The carbonation does have the negative effect of messing with the boba and shooting out of the larger straw we used, so keep that in mind.

It’s not entirely unpleasant and worth the try if you’re a real boba fan, but we’re not rushing out to get this one again.

Pink Citrus Krusher

The most boring item on this list. Another carbonated drink, it just tastes like the most generic, no name mixed fruit soda out there. There’s simply nothing to note about the flavour other than the fact that it’s way too sweet. This one is at the bottom of the pile for sure.

We should not here that we ordered the Cherry Cola Boba and the Pink Citrus Krusher with no ice, and you can see that both cups were definitely not filled to the top. Many fast food places do this but given the high prices here we wanted more drink for what we paid if we chose no ice.

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