Someone once asked me what my last meal would be if I had a choice. Easy. Southern fried chicken. Not deep-fried chicken but rather skillet fried in lard in a generations old cast iron skillet.
I love fried chicken and eat it out as often as I can. So, here are some of my favorite places to eat fried chicken.
- Juniper Valley Ranch, south of Colorado Springs, Colorado on Highway 115
- Hacienda style building
- They only serve two mains – Baked Ham or what you really want, Skillet Fried Chicken, plus riced potatoes with cream gravy, cole slaw, okra casserole, homemade biscuits with apple butter and Peppermint Stick ice cream for dessert. All served family style and all you can eat.
- Maybe the best chicken ever! Well worth the drive to this place.
- Speaking of driving, Pittsburg, Kansas is the fried chicken capital of the Midwest. One of the best in the area is Chicken Mary’s. Terrific fried chicken, amazing onion rings (really strings) and wonderful cole slaw, plus German style potato salad.
- Another wonderful fried chicken place in Kansas is the Brookville Hotel in Abilene. Family style chicken dinners.
- Classic meat and three Diners (one meat coupled with three select vegetables) often have wonderful fried chicken. Wade’s in Spartanburg, SC, Loveless Cafe in Nashville, TN and the Silver Skillet in Atlanta, GA are three wonderful places.
- Some renowned cafeterias also have terrific fried yardbird. Niki’s West has been serving great chicken and fixings since 1957 in Birmingham, Alabama while Arnold’s Country Kitchen has been a Nashville, Tennessee fixture since 1982.
- Can chains produce GREAT fried chicken? Yes, if it’s Babe’s in Texas. Now with ten locations, all in north Texas around the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, this place serves legit fried chicken. Served family style with sides like their house salad with ranch dressing, creamed corn, mashed potatoes and gravy and biscuits!
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Each month we will spotlight one of the “very best but now gone” places to eat. We’ll take a trip down memory lane. This week, in honor of great fried chicken, we salute Burton’s Grill once located in the Inman Park section of Atlanta, the first suburb of that southern city. Deacon Burton cooked tremendous soul food every day with his fried chicken as a standout. Gone but not forgotten.
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
A lagniappe is a Louisiana French Creole word meaning “a little something extra”. It can be a small gift included with a purchase or a special little food treat at a meal in a restaurant. Each month I will give you my gift of a lagniappe or a little something you may not have expected ON THE ROAD WITH RICK. One of the great December and Christmas Eve traditions is the Italian meal called the Feast of the Seven Fishes. It is traditionally served after Midnight Mass early on Christmas morning and features an all-seafood menu of at least seven dishes, usually served family style. We do this each holiday season with two other couples from our neighborhood and love the evening we spend together. Our menus have included linguine with white clam sauce, pickled shrimp, cioppino, baked oysters, celery salad with scallops, and many more dishes. We’ve also done Low Country versions, an Irish version, and this year will do a Cajun/Creole version called Papa Noel! Try it next year with friends and family.
UNITED TASTES OF AMERICA
Next year, as part of the celebration of America’s 250th birthday (our Semiquincentennial – now, that’s a MOUTHFUL), I am releasing, with my partner iHeart, a weekly video vignette plus podcast series called United Tastes of America. We are traveling to each of our 50 states to tell the culinary history of America and selecting one iconic dish from that state to spotlight. We will film the making of that dish and one of the most renowned restaurants in that state, too. As a subscriber to the ON THE ROAD WITH RICK newsletter, you will get a sneak peak of those dishes and restaurants each month beginning in January.
Look for our next edition in early January featuring foods from the Carolinas, shrimp and grits, and more. Plus the states of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.