The ready-to-go (a.k.a home meal replacement) market has become all the rage, where you can pick up almost anything for dinner on a run-through in a food store of some sort. The meal is on the table fast, and it takes the worry out of what to cook up for dinner. Sure, it isn’t the same as a homemade, slow-cooked meal, but admit it – there are times where this is the alternative for those time-pressed days. My curious mind wanted to put a popular home meal replacement product to the test – the rotisserie/roasted chicken. So who makes an acceptable rotisserie chicken? Since there was only so much chicken I could consume without becoming one, I narrowed down the choices to three outlets that have their unique advantage in attracting the consumer:

My husband was my fellow designated eater for this taste test. We tried the products all within one week, and maintained the same side dishes of rice and corn. Plain yes, but the focus was on our poultry companions. Here are the results…

Churrasquiera do Sardinha
705 College Street
416-531-1120
Price: $9.50
Weight: 0.80 kg/1.75 lbs
Churrasco chicken has always been a good dinner choice for the husband and I when we are not in the mood to cook. A definite plus was that the chicken was still piping hot when I got home, even after a 20 minute streetcar ride. It probably helps that it was taken straight out of the rotisserie when ordered. As I was chopping it up, I noticed that the meat came off the bone easily. The aroma had strong burnt notes, and the charred taste also came through upon consumption. The meat was a little dry and the drumstick meat ’squeaked’ a bit on bite. This could be due to me salvaging one of the last birds on the bottom rotisserie rack. Overall, it was marinated in the spices and salted at an adequate level, i.e. did not have to add additional salt to the meat. I usually get consistently tasty chicken from this joint, and I do enjoy the perk of the piri-piri hot sauce on the meat – it can be ordered on the side or slathered on the meat at the store.

Cumbrae’s
481 Church Street (with 2 other locations)
416-923-5600
Price: $13.99
Weight: 1.04 kg/2.25 lbs
Looking at this chicken in the display case from afar, it already appeared pumped up. The chicken drumsticks were at least 1.5 times larger than the other two! This bird’s marinade and rub had strong rosemary essence and also some spicy kick – cayenne, I believe? There were no charred edges, thus no burnt aroma. The meat was very tender and moist, and it lived up to the Cumbrae’s website description of how their chicken should taste like.

If I had to find a downside, it would be that the chicken is purchased chilled and required warming up at home. This is not an issue for me, but for someone who wants to get food on the table in a hurry, this would be a deterrent. The price point was quite high, compared to their competitors, but the quality was superb. It would not be an everyday purchase, but something to splurge on.

Dominion
444 Yonge Street (plus other locations)
416-597-2800
Price: $6.49
Weight: .70 kg/1.52 lbs
Out of the lot, this poor bird looked the least aesthetically pleasing. The skin was shrivelled up and it had an immediate waft of burnt odour when taking it out of the container. I could not decipher what kind of spices it was flavoured with, so my guess was the standard oil, salt and pepper. It was still warm come dinner time, and the meat did come off easily from the bones. We were pleasantly surprised with the texture, as it was not dry or chewy, and was favoured in this attribute over the churrasco chicken. It did lack flavour and a spice hit compared to the other two competitors, but it wasn’t entirely disappointing. An acceptable chicken, but more of an impulse buy if I am already in the supermarket picking up other items.