DQ Honey Hot Tossed & Sauced Chicken Strips

For a while now I've seen Dairy Queen (DQ) advertise their Honey BBQ Glazed Chicken Strip Basket:

This guy went to sports bars for "Honey BBQ chicken" - I don't know if he means wings, fried chicken, or sauced chicken fingers, but now he's doing "the dad thing." Most sports bars I've been to these days have families at them ... so why can't you take your kid? What are you trying to imply about sports bars DQ? Also, this is the American version of the commercial because this combo never came with toast here in Canada. 

Well recently DQ upped their game with Honey Hot Glazed strips .. with a dig at wing lovers:

"I make sports bar wings cry to their celery sticks"  - well now I had to see for myself if these sauced chicken were up to their call.

I headed down to a local DQ at lunch time to see what all the hullabaloo was about, if anything. They place was pretty quiet - only 2 guys in suits who were already eating, and someone came in after I was about to leave.

Both chicken strip baskets were advertised on the menu board. I was there to try the Honey Hot, but I was curious about the honey BBQ. I placed an order of Honey Hot - I was asked if I wanted 4 or 6. I asked if I could get the order of 4, but could I get an added order of just 4 of the BBQ but no fries but was told they can't sell the strips on their own - they have to come in the combo, and that I couldn't get 6 and mix and match. Their order terminals are very limiting I guess.

I went with the order of 6. I didn't ask for the drink, but they guy automatically upgraded my meal to a drink, despite the adds suggesting you can add a drink if you want. It's ok, I wanted a drink anyway.

The order took about 5 minutes to make, and they gave me my bag with a big box on the side.

I had turned the bag upright, which was a mistake because when I opened the box, I saw the above photo.

There, moved the fries, that's better. This box makes it look underwhelming, but it's actually a big box and the rest of the strips are under the ones seen here. My first impressions was that the chicken looked crispy, super saucy, they were steaming hot and smelled good.

Again, this photo looks deceptive, as it looks like a chicken finger. The chicken strip was actually about 8-10 cm long. Each strip was different, and it was great that these were not preformed processed chicken, but more like the actual chicken tender from the breast.

Despite about a 5-10 minute drive to park and eat, these things were steaming hot when I pulled them out, and the chicken was still crispy/crunchy when I took a bite. The meat was also very tender. Texture wise, these were damn good.

The sauce was perfectly described - Hot Honey. It was sweet with heat. It was viscous, and slightly sticky thick but still runny. I . . . I really liked it. It actually had a small kick, and it wasn't sickening sweet either. A great balance.

They also have ranch dressing on the side - and it works for a nice dip that works well with the chicken and the hot honey sauce. It's not cloyingly fake like some ranch, but isn't too in depth either.

In the end, there was a nice little lake of sauce that I used to dip my fries in. The fries are decent - crispy, but not a lot of flavour, but not garbage fries either. However, you can totally switch for onion rings (which I have done since).

So I would totally recommend Dairy Queen's Honey Hot chicken strips. They don't claim to be boneless wings, and while they claim to make sports bar wings cry, they aren't, but these are excellent sauced chicken fingers. Don't know about the BBQ, but the Honey Hot was great.