The Taste Bud: Reaper Disappointment at Dave’s

$19 worth of really, really hot chicken. Photo by Kevin Gibson

I’ve long been a believer that one should experience the widest bounty of pleasures life has to offer while one has the opportunity to do so. However, I found one experience I would recommend passing on: Dave’s Hot Chicken Reaper tenders.

I’m not a fan of chains to begin with, but when my friend Mike suggested trying Dave’s for a recent lunch meet-up, noting the California-founded restaurant chain had some super-hot flavors on the menu, I said what the heck — always being up for trying ultra-spicy food, I decided it was worth a shot.

We met at the location in Jeffersonville, Ind., and I quickly noted the place was bright and clean, with inviting decor. The relatively short menu has tenders, sliders, chicken bites, loaded fries and a few other odds and ends. Essentially, pretty basic chicken-based fast-food fare of the Nashville hot variety. Nothing wrong with that when you’re in the mood.

I ordered the two-tenders dinner, which comes with fries, pickle slices and a couple slices of bread, for $12.49, adding a large soft drink for an additional $2.99. Then came tax, followed by a 15% tip, and somehow my fairly modest lunch was over $19. Yikes.

Part of the experience if you order the Reaper-level heat at Dave’s is that you have to sign a waiver, which reads in part, “Eating Dave’s Hot Chicken Reaper carries with it the potential for certain risks, some of which may be foreseeable. … Including, but not limited to, bodily injury, property damage [?], emotional distress or even death.”

Kinda fun. I happily signed.

Moments later, I collected my food at the counter and was handed two average-sized tenders, with seasoned crinkle cut fries, a side of the house sauce and the rest of the sides. I dug in, and my fries, while nicely seasoned, were neither hot nor crispy, as I would normally prefer. The seasoning was nice, so they did taste good, but it seemed they had been sitting in a warmer for a bit. Not ideal.

The pickles were OK, but they were limp, not crunchy. The bread was … well, bread. But the biggest disappointment came in the form of the tenders. Were they hot? Oh, hell yes. And I’m an old hand at eating stupidly hot foods. As soon as I sat down, the very smell began tickling my nose. And the heat hits on the first bite, latching on for an ongoing sizzle. I get the idea of the waiver, because someone not used to hot food would probably end up crying in a fetal position.

But the flavor just wasn’t appealing in any way.

A couple years ago in Green Bay, I had some wings so hot that they made my lower lip bleed, but they were so delicious that I couldn’t stop eating them. I got through about half of one of the Dave’s Reaper tenders before I just felt there was no need to continue forward. I don’t mind my tongue burning as long as I’m getting something out of the experience, but I just wasn’t getting what I wanted. It was just empty heat, at least to my taste buds. It was the kind of hot you would use to play a mean joke on someone, like Da Bomb Beyond Insanity hot sauce, which tastes a bit like sadness.

I wanted to like the Reaper tenders. I wanted to want more of them. But for the price, I just don’t see it. If I go back, I’ll try the heat level just below Reaper and assume the flavor will be more like a Nashville-style sauce. (I’ll also potentially need to save for a few weeks first.)