Today for lunch, I went to White Castle and got three cheeseburgers (no pickle), a Coke and a small order of their new Buffalo Chicken Bites.

You can read more about the Buffalo Chicken Bites by clicking here and reading the article by the fine people over at — wait for it, wait for it — MeatNews.com.

How did I never previously know such a website existed? I’ll be pursuing employment opportunities there immediately.

Anyway.

The cheeseburgers met White Castle’s usual standard of steamy goodness. (When I was little, my parents would always get me a Star Wars action figure and a White Castle cheeseburger every time we’d go through New Albany. I was only the happiest kid ever.)

The Buffalo Chicken Bites, however, weren’t so good.

There were packaged in a small box reminiscent of a little Chinese food container, and there were plenty of them crammed in there for $1.78.

True to their name, each Buffalo Chicken Bite was bite-sized, about the same size as a bite-sized Snickers candy bar.

And though they were indeed very spicy, they didn’t really taste “buffalo” at all.

Furthermore, I don’t think they were really made of chicken. The consistency of the “chicken” beneath the breading looked more like … crab cake? It’s hard to explain. Either way, they neither tasted nor chewed like chicken.

I find this disappointing, because I’ve been a big fan of White Castle’s Chicken Rings ever since a very weird lady got behind me and Bob in the order line one time and suggested we try them because “they’re good for you.” This incident was not connected to another time when Bob and Daemon and I were eating at White Castle and, without provocation, two strange old men started lobbing half-eaten fish sandwiches at us from three tables over. Nor was it connected to the time that Greg and Dan and I stopped at White Castle on the way home from seeing a movie to get a late-night snack, even though we’d eaten a giant Wick’s pizza before the movie, and Dan got a sack of 10 burgers because he wanted to take some home for the next day but ended up eating all 10 of them right there anyway.

I will recommend White Castle burgers and fries and onion rings and chicken rings and mozzarella sticks and fried bologna/egg/cheese breakfast sandwiches with hash browns until the day I die, but please steer clear of the Buffalo Chicken Bites.

They don’t taste “buffalo,” and that’s clearly not chicken.

What are you eating? Because I’d really like to know.