Cheap As Chips; DIXI CHICKEN, PERSHORE STREET, BIRMINGHAM VERDICT: *.

Byline: GRAHAM YOUNG

WITH neither its garish exterior nor smashed front door failing to put people off, I gamely joined the crowds inside this fast food emporium.

Being able to smell the grease from halfway across the street on a Sunday lunchtime didn't bode well.

My chips, long and orangey and powdery inside, tasted all right at first, but, after just two, I could tell that a pounds 1 box weighing 450g on my in-car scales would have been worth a whole carton of indigestion tablets.

Not for me, then, but clearly enough people can tolerate chips like this to keep Dixi k ickin'.