Nashville, TN 37207
(615) 226-9442
If you have ever seen any type of travel show about Nashville, they undoubtedly mention hot chicken. Hot chicken (along with meat and three) is one of the staples of this incredible area. Unfortunately one of the most famous hot chicken joints also happened to be one of my least favorites. The picture below screams everything I like about hole in the wall food spots. Cheap table clothes, amazing branding, and phone numbers with no area code.
When you walk into this place, the air is thick and warm, the crowd is large, and the service friendly. You order at the window and jockey for a table/seat. Luckily, the Southern friendliness did not hold up well against the Philadelphia attitude, and I was able to snake a table within ten minutes of ordering.
There are a variety of awards around the restaurant. I was getting very excited. This is one of my favorites.
And then you wait. And wait. And WAIT. It took about 45 minutes from ordering to getting your food. I got a half a chicken at the "hot" spice level, a lemonade, coleslaw, pickles, and potato salad. The counter lady said "you eating all that yourself?". I nodded and took my trays away in shame. Luckily for me, I don't care about my tendencies for gluttonous over-intake and soon was trying to pry the skin off of a thigh that was approximately the temperature of the sun. It took no less than ten minutes to get the chicken to a first degree burn temperature and shove it into my gullet.
Look at this line up. Fried chicken on a slice of white bread with some pickles. Perfection.
There was one problem, however. Now I am a HUGE fan of hot food. Love it. I DON'T love unbalanced heat that is just there to burn. There were still two levels of heat above the "hot" flavor I ordered, so I figured I was in the clear. Not so much. The only way I can describe the level of burn on this chicken is like this.
I could barely get the skin down. I was afraid I was going to vomit involuntarily from the level of spice hitting my throat. I was actually laughing hysterically as it was all going down, because I just couldn't understand the place. My god, some honey or sugar would have done wonders to this stuff. It was pure burn, nothing else. Literally brushing cayenne paste onto the chicken that has cayenne in the breading, and was perhaps soaked in Lucifer's sweat. The skin was crunchy but nearly inedible, the meat was hot but tolerable, and the temperature inside of this place did not help matters. I thought someone slipped me some hallucinogens.
While I am glad I went, I don't know that I would rush back. If so, I would likely get the medium or (gasp) mild. It was just not enjoyable in its hot form and that made me sad. So sad.
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