Remember our vicious takedown of the plot to Texas Chicken’s latest National Day promo commercial for their Sambal Chicken?
You know, the one where we (playfully) chided the fast-food brand for publicizing sambal chicken that’s as authentic (if not more) as the ones made by actual Singaporean aunties? Remember that?
Well, Texas Chicken remembers — and it looks like we’re going to have to eat crow. Or chicken.
After noticing our tongue-in-cheek review of their video, representatives from the restaurant decided to show Coconuts Singapore that, they too, have a sense of humor and gamesmanship.
They struck back by sending our office a few buckets of their “Auntie Approved” Sambal Chicken, along with a letter detailing some background about their now-viral ad. You see, the video we skewered, featuring two aunties engaging in a rap battle over who has the best sambal recipe, is actually a sequel — well, really a threequel — to the National Day ads aired by the company in previous years.
Oops. We didn’t know. Now we do.
The point of the 2018 commercial, Texas Chicken wrote us, was not to put down the aunties’ recipes. It’s more complicated than that — which we would have known if we had seen their 2016 and 2017 campaigns.
These earlier videos introduce us to Auntie Bee Li and Makcik Halijah, respectively. In the unfolding action of those episodes, we discover that each of them — through no fault of their own — were forced to substitute Texas Chicken’s sambal in a pinch.
It was so good, apparently, that they deemed it “Auntie Approved” and later, “Makcik Approved.”
The company reps also revealed that the third Auntie that popped up at the end of 2018 commercial, was not rubbing the Texas Chicken sambal in their faces, but was chastising them for fighting and reminding them that they both agreed on something: that Texas Chicken is indeed “Auntie Approved”.
Touché, Texas Chicken. There were layers to this running gag after all.
After burying the pretend hatchet, we decided to try some of this peace-making Sambal Chicken — and we have to admit, it’s pretty good. And we’re not just saying that to smooth over our former beef with Texas Chicken. And we promise you, this isn’t #sponsoredcontent.
Now we’re well-versed in Texas Chicken’s world cinematic universe involving aunties secretly loving the fast-food chain. We’ll say it again: Touché.
