Hong Kong KFC outlets let the Double Down Dog off the leash on Thursday, bringing a new breed of the abomination aptly described as an “unwieldy fried meat Oreo” to a franchise near you.
The Double Down Burger originally began life as an April Fools’ Day press release, but within a few short years it gave rise to an all-too-real variation in the United States, Canada, Japan, Korea, the Philippines and elsewhere.
The original Double Down Burger from the United States. Photo: Wikicommons.
Darkening Hong Kong’s shores is a truncated version of the heart-stopping original: two deep-fried chicken breast “buns” enclosing bacon and molten cheese.
In the Philippines, the Double Down was limited to select KFC outlets when it first launched, with a maximum of 50 units sold per day for a brief but undoubtedly glorious two-day window.
In Hong Kong, the Double Down will be available after 11:00am from August 20 all the way to September 19 at all local KFCs—except those in Sha Tin Centre, Telford Plaza, Ocean Terminal, Hong Kong Stadium, AsiaWorld-Expo and Shantung Street.
The “no-bread burger” arrives in Hong Kong. Photo: KFC.
For just HK$36.90, you can get your hands on a Double Down meal complete with a soft drink and an order of tortilla chips drowned by yet more coagulated cheese.
As well as a “heart attack waiting to happen,” the Double Down has also been described as junk food tailor-made for the social media age, designed to be spread via sarky YouTube reviews and ironic Instagram snaps rather than to be eaten and enjoyed.
Double Down ad. Photo: KFC.
Whether or not you should eat the Double Down is unclear; but with an advertising campaign that has featured it’s very own hashtag, the people at KFC are at least certain that you should tweet it.