The best items on the Popeyes menu, ranked

This was the only hard miss from my return to Popeyes. The cinnamon sugar is mostly sugar, like a fine dusting of diabetes. Inside, there was so little filling that it looked more like a tiny cave that once held apple pie filling but has since been evacuated. Worst of all, I will be finding Popeyes cinnamon sugar in my center console until the end of time.

In the world of mac and cheese, it’s not a good sign when you can’t differentiate between the cheese and the mac. The noodles were so overcooked to render them as gooey as the cheese sauce. That said, the flavor here is solid, a bit of a spice just on the back end, so you just might still enjoy this gooey scoop.

Unlike the cardboard used for almost everything else at Popeyes, these come in an ominous-looking black plastic box, because Popeyes douses them as if they’re trying to put out a fire. The Sweet & Spicy sauce is outrageously cloying, like rock candy duck sauce. Despite the pool of syrup, these things were just about floating in, the wings remained crispy, a modern miracle that made them very hard to put down, even if they were sweeter than shoofly pie.

This dish is apparently so beloved that there are untold numbers of websites with instructions on how to recreate it. This was my favorite side order at Popeye’s back when it was a weekly stop for me, but tasting it again here, there’s a bit of a chalky aftertaste that speaks to the fact that it was likely cooked long ago at some corporate kitchen. Still, this is a solid side, and like the potatoes, the creaminess works well with the chicken.

I don’t know what makes a gravy Cajun, but I’m going to say I like it. Sure, both the gravy and potatoes are too gelatinous, nearly a Thanksgiving-themed Jello. But they’re also tasty and a smooth-textured complement to all the crispy things you’re eating at Popeyes.

There wasn’t much shrimpiness in my quarter-pound of popcorn shrimp. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, considering not many of us crave a lot of flavor from our drive-through seafood. Instead, what you taste is that spicy Popeyes batter, making these things more reminiscent of the batter bits that collect in the oil after frying chicken. So if simply as vehicles for the sauce you’re dipping them in, these things are winners.

They lather buckets of butter onto the Popeyes biscuits, so much so that after eating one of these, your hands, face, clothing, children and neighbors four houses down may be forever greasy. It’s worth it because these flaky numbers are nicely crackly on the exterior and tender within.

Like the bone-in chicken mentioned above, these seem double-dredged, creating long wisps of crunchy batter that hang off the meat in the most glorious ways. They’re well seasoned and crispy, juicy inside, and just about the world’s perfect fast-food chicken tender.

It appears Popeye’s corporate overlords don’t mess around with meetings and focus groups to name their products. It’s called Chicken Sandwich, because that’s what it is. But I’m not complaining: this is a very good fast-food chicken sandwich, a somewhat soggy bun holding a crispy and pretty thick chicken patty with a few pickles and a good heap of mayo. Simply named, well executed.

The amount that I liked this fried chicken astounded me. It was well breaded, batter-dredged twice I’d guess, so that the end result is a coating with lots of layers. It’s fried until nicely crispy and yet quite juicy inside (Popeye’s reportedly uses a buttermilk marinade). It’s better seasoned than most fast-food fried chicken and far less salty than KFC’s. As a Southerner my entire adult life, I offer the greatest of praise when I say: I would serve this fried chicken to guests.