Big Time Meals | Chicken Teriyaki

When you talk about being authentic it has to be based from the original, and that means being genuine as it has to be. With 7 Eleven’s Big Time Meals they have expanded their menu to Japanese favourites like the Beef Gyūdon, and now adding one more to the dish is the Chicken Teriyaki. There have been many local restaurants and food establishments that dared to adapt what is an authentic meal like the Chicken Teriyaki. Some has succeeded and there are some have never even understand what authentic means. But most of the time there’s one would dare it to make it their dish as how they adapted it.

For those who haven’t tried one, a Chicken Teriyaki has a simple sauce made of soy sauce, water, honey, vinegar, garlic and ginger. The perfect sticky sauce for serving over rice is the one that makes the dish good. Previously, the Japanese Big Time Meals is served in a bowl, though not deep enough for a lot serving this one was just about right on how it was presented.

Opening it up the Chicken Teriyaki and the sauce is already there, but separated from the rice and the translucent plastic tray that is usually the set up before you heat up this frozen meal. Most who would prepare this prior to heating up the microwave is not keen to putting the dish on top of the rice and just let it cook separately.

The plastic tray that divides the Chicken Teriyaki and the rice is not microwavable, and not keen on getting melted in this meal so be warned. You can see closely how the Chicken Teriyaki is separated, just flipped it over when it was put on the rice.

More Sauce, better taste

Most of the time, the one thing that makes a dish taste good is the sauce and this Teriyaki seemed to be needing A LOT of that. It just doesn’t look that good if the meat is gasping for sauce or it needs to be nourished by it. An authentic Japanese dish surely needs what it is expected and yet this one was like it had a drought.

Of course, once you have pulled it out of the microwave oven you have to mix the rice, then slice and dice the Chicken Teriyaki together. It’s not good if you just have a heated Teriyaki not mixed with the rice. Since the sauce was not enough added with a different sauce to ‘extend’ the flavour.

Not Genuinely Boneless

There’s a local Japanese grocery that serves a plethora of dishes, and they don’t say ‘authentic’ it is the real deal, and with that you have to pay a little bit extra. The Chicken Teriyaki by 7 Eleven had made it possible to make their own version, and call it authentic though understandable that they have to make some sacrifices to be affordable in order to still have quality in it.

This is where the sauce lack in that department, but other than that it was not as authentic as they wanted to be and yet they still deliver to be affordable at the same time retain some semblance of the food’s quality.

Overall reason why the ‘authentic’ part was questionable as the previously mentioned Japanese grocery have sold their Chicken Teriyaki and it was good not just with the sauce, but the chicken meat is boneless. The one at 7 Eleven if it was made to be lethal that bone could have choked anyone. Chicken Teriyaki are authentically boneless and that is why it was one that sells out in that Japanese grocery.

This one sells out too, just the part that their Chicken Teriyaki is not that pure enough to be authentic and boneless. The rest was enough to garner a good note that it taste better, but the lack of sauce and not entirely boneless was the highlight here.

• Food Quality: 3.5 out of 5
• Affordability: B+
• Overall: Lacking of sauce and not Boneless

Chicken Teriyaki | Retailed at: ₱ 99.00 Pesos [$ 2.54 AUD | $ 1.89 USD]**

** - Currency Converter via Google.com