KFC Korean Burger and Rio

Let's discuss two things that are currently heavily advertised in Nanjing AKA:

• a 2nd tier city in mainland China 307KM (~190 miles for us Americans) northwest of Shanghai
• Nanking
• China's old capital before Beijing
• Known for the infamous Nanjing Massacre which happened during WWII
• Where I was born

Anyways, everywhere I go I see these two products, on the subway, billboards, newspapers and on Youku (China's Youtube twin, in my opinion the cooler one! It's one of the few sites where I can stream up to date American TV shows without having to use VPN (in non technical terms, VPN lets us expats stay connected to our friends and news through Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram and other social media sites that are blocked by the government).

Numero Uno: KFC's Korean Crispy Chicken Leg Burger 

Who can resist this delicious looking crispy chicken sandwich?? It's hard to see but the fries are seasoned as well and the thirst quenching blue "imaginary dream" drink. (As translated from Chinese).

Enlarged for you to see the texture, are you drooling? Image via KFC China

I haven't mentioned yet that it's endorsed by girly (by which I mean sexy) looking Korean pop stars called EXO-M (no offense to KPOP lovers out there, I'm always mesmerized by the music videos playing in Korean restaurants. Every time we go to a place like that, I secretly wish my friends would stop talking and let me watch in peace ). Here's EXO-M:

Image via KFC China

At first I thought there were 10 members in the group but I think it's supposed to show the side by side transformation to aliens hence the blue outer space theme on the KFC website. Ended up not getting the collectibles, they're not even that cute! 

Here's what reality looks like:

I swear it's the camera's fault! 

It was not crispy at all which is supposedly what the little circle things on the chicken are for. From the picture you can't tell but there's a handful of seaweed strips and the red sauce, that's not ketchup it's Korean hot pepper paste, gochujang. I still had high hopes for the french fries because in the picture it looks so seasoned. Again reality is not what you expect... all they do is give you regular fries with a packaging of a powder that looks and tastes like instant noodle seasoning. You're supposed to shake the fires and seasoning in the bag. Let's not even mention the blue dream drink which is like cotton candy soda (I'm probably biased since I'm not a fan of soda), I got a milk tea instead. 

Verdict: Advertising works, I saw this ad and commercial three times yesterday and craved KFC for dinner. Next time I think I'll be sticking to my usual spicy chicken burger (which is deliciously spicy and highly recommended by me). 

Numero Dos: RIO 

Product placement and heavy advertisement did it for me again. I caved and bought some at Walmart yesterday. 

One word about Walmart in China, it is not at all like what we see in People of Walmart. It's just a regular grocery store that sells vegetables, meat, dried goods etc. Although yesterday as I was walking through the security sensors with my groceries I started beeping. As the Walmart employee was checking my bags, a small crowd of middle aged women started to close in. They were all excited to see what caused the beeping, probably hoping that I "stole" something. Lesson learned: any little thing in China can cause a big commotion.

Back to Rio, we're not talking about the cartoon about the bird. 

In the commercials they advertise this drink for women who don't like the taste of alcohol but want to celebrate with a drink. 

They sell in both glass bottles and canned. The glass bottle is 3.8% alcohol while the canned is 3%. Glass bottle cost: 12RMB= 2USD and Canned: 5RMB= 80cents. 

I've tried sips of peach+brandy and fruit punch+vodka in the glass before so this time bought two new flavors: Lemon Rum and Grapefruit Vodka. Just to be safe as I remembered it was too sweet for my taste, we opened one at a time. And that was the best decision ever. We tried the lemon rum, it's a light green color and tastes like overly sweet Sprite in a sickly way. I think I'll be sticking to beer.  

I want to leave you with this final picture. See if you can find what's disturbing about it:

Answer: Why does this bottle of wine cost only 8.80 RMB ($1.40)?!? Did they use fake grapes like the fake egg scandal a few years ago: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/06/how-to-make-a-rotten-egg/ ?