Jalapeño Chicken Burger. Sort Of.

Whenever you show up in a city/town in China, there is always an easy way to tell how developed the town and surrounded area is. I call it the "restaurant litmus test."

• Tier 1 Cities will have an abundance of Western restaurants, with so many options like Outback Steakhouse, Tony Roma's Ribs, non-chain Western establishments that are up to international standards, etc. that the though of going to Burger King or McDonald's wouldn't cross your mind.
• Tier 2 Cities have Dunkin Doughnuts, Baskin Robbins, Burger King, Papa John's Pizza and maybe 1 or 2 other chains, any of which you would be happy to partake in.
• Tier 3 Cities have McDonald's and Pizza Hut and KFC, but none of the above restaurants (though Tier 1 and 2 Cities have these and all the options soon to be listed below). McDonald's is your best option here, though Pizza Hut used to be the best option in this kind of city until they decided to take on a distinctly more "local" flavor in their menu (read: corn on pizza, strange seafood fare on pizza, etc.)
  
• Tier 4 Cities have a bunch of KFCs, maybe a Pizza Hut if you're lucky, but that's it.
• Tier 5 Towns (and let's be clear, this is where "town" begins) may have 1 KFC or none. However, they will have an abundance of the Taiwanese KFC knock-off called Dicos. Imagine a grosser version of KFC with lower standards. Well, at least try to imagine, if you can.

So recently, while our friends James and Laura were in town visiting us, we took a road trip across the beautiful countryside to a town about 4 hours away.

Now, the town we live in has a handful of Dicos, so it's flirting with a "Tier 5 Town" rating on the Aaron O'Hare Restaurant Litmus Test scale. The town we took the road trip to, on the other hand, only has 1 Dicos. It's that kind of small. 

Stacy describes it as a "cowboy ghost town with tumbleweed blowing down the streets." That's pretty accurate.

A pretty standard Dicos combo meal, with fries (because they think that's obligatory for fast food), some weird soup, a rice and stir fry dish (because even though it's fast food, we're still in Asia), and some chicken nuggets.

Anyway, in this small, small town, I dragged everyone to Dicos so that I could grab a greasy chicken snack. When we got their, I came face-to-face with Dicos' new offering - The Jalapeño Chicken Burger.

Only, it was the Chinese version of a Jalapeño Chicken Burger, so it went something like this: a stale bun, a fried chicken breast patty, lettuce, tons of mayonnaise (it's a Dicos thing, I'm not sure why they put so much),  and cucumbers covered in some sort of a spicy sauce.

It was then that I realized that no one in the Dicos organization knew what a jalapeño was. Cucumbers covered in hot sauce? Is that the best your R&D department could come up with?

My parting thought: cucumbers covered in hot sauce + a borderline racist ad of a Chinese guy wearing a Mexican poncho, sombrero, and a General Zapata mustache does not equal a jalapeño chicken sandwich.

But for now, I guess it'll have to do.