Text 23443, 113 rader
Skriven 2009-04-18 17:30:08 av Michael Loo (1:18/200.0)
Ärende: desperately seeking 505
===============================
Two eponymous U St. places found while looking for chicken.

Ben's Chili Bowl - I was trying to find a fried chicken
place that I'd heard a vague rumor about but discovered that
I was just half a block from probably the most famous chili
restaurant that there is (thanks to Bill Cosby and, latterly,
Barack Obama). So I had to get a chili half smoke, which I
believe is what the President had. At 5 pm there was a line
out the door, and this line wasn't moving. After a while,
a purposeful-looking woman strode out from the back and took
matters into her own hands. Who's next? I was, and I placed
my order, which she had ready within seconds. Then I went
round to the cashier to pay but had to wait a while there,
the making of change apparently not being a subject taught
in the DC public schools. The half smoke was a decent sausage,
pleasantly fatty and with that unctuousness that comes from a
little ground skin in the mix; the chili, though points in
favor for having no beans, didn't have much taste, either,
aside from a bit of cayenne burn. The bun was one of those
hideous melt-in-your-hands things. Verdict: distinctly
underwhelming, but I may go there at 4 in the morning around
closing time; maybe the chili has improved a bit by then.

==

Henry's Delicatessen Carryout is another fabled joint: it is
a real dump - a little waiting area where you bathe in
greasy smells while your order is prepared, with the cashier/
order taker off to the right. No place to sit. The menu is
your standard soul food: fried, baked, or smothered chicken,
fried whiting or croaker, ribs, steak, meatloaf, pig feet,
pork chops, chitlins. Collards, fried okra, mac and cheese,
yams, mashed, slaw, rice. I was tempted by the okra, but
instead I had 8 wings for $7, which came out in short order
while people who had ordered meals with sides before I came
continued to wait. When I opened the rather heavy styro
container I discovered 4 large whole wings and 4 regular
sized whole wings. (Which brings me to one of the great frauds
perpetrated by restaurants, in addition to krab and truffle
oil: the chicken wing. So you order an order of 6 chicken
wings, and you get, for a buck a piece, 3 drumettes and 3
double-bones. This, folks, is not 6 chicken wings, it is
3 chicken wings minus the good part.) Anyhow, Yelp and
Chowhound have made this place out to be the apotheosis of
fried chicken. It's not. It's good chicken but still not
nearly so good as Popeye's. My wings were fried very crisp,
so the tips were nice and crunchy and the two-bones were
perfect, but the drumettes became overcooked. The batter,
light and dry, was seasoned abundantly with salt and pepper
but that was it. The famous mumbo sauce (I got it on the
side) was like Chinese takeout plum sauce with liquid smoke
mixed in: from the writeups I expected it to be hot sauce
taken to the nth degree, but in reality it was dead sweet
and with little or no spicing. This order actually served
me 2.5 meals.

Henry's kids, by the way, have run with the ball and started
henryssoulcafe.net, which has almost the identical menu but
appears to be a sitdown restaurant in the Maryland suburbs.

= =

MSST said there was a KFC within walking distance, so I
went to the address and discovered that its place had been
taken by Old City Cafe of Jerusalem. The Popeye's down the
way continues to thrive, so score one up for the good guys.
I decided, okay, why not, I'll have a falafel sandwich, so
I wandered in. Nobody behind the counter. Nobody in the
store at all. I gave up and went to the local boozerei and
spent my $5 for a six-pack of Yuengling, which became lunch.

= =

A block down from the former KFC, I discovered El Pollo
Granjero, also claimed by some to have the best chicken in
town. I had to walk through a street fair with a half dozen
taco vendors and past a place selling callos a la madrilena
for $10, but when one has fried chicken on the brain, one's
got to do what one's got to do. Got to the place and found
it hopping with an exclusively Hispanic clientele. The guy
behind the counter, though, kindly switched to an interesting
accented version of English when waiting on me. It was also
pointed out that chicharonnes con yuca was one of the specials
of the week, but I really was here on a mission. Figured that
if the chicken was any good, I might come back for fried pig
parts another day. Service was as efficient as one could expect
for one guy behind the register and one guy in the kitchen and
ten customers drooling; I got my order within 10 minutes and
took it back to be consumed with the last of the Yuengs.

The chicken is good - not so good as Henry's, which means not
nearly so good as Popeye's; but it is juicy and fresh-tasting.
Oddly, the bones have been cooked almost to a powder, while the
meat remains tender: I am guessing some kind of pressure fryer
in the back room. The breading is unseasoned except for a bit
of salt; a shake of hot pepper helped quite a lot. On the side
blandish red beans and rice (helped with the same hot pepper
and also a bit of cumin) and the best fried yuca I've ever
tasted - crisp but fine-grained, almost exploding on the
outside, melting inside. Also white and green sauces (this is
a Peruvian-origin place) - the former tasted like mayo mixed
with Inka Cola; the latter was cilantro, garlic, green chiles,
and maybe tomatillo - quite nice on the rice and beans. And
an arepa, a thick doughy relative of the tortilla. It went
okay with the green sauce. I'll eventually go back for the
chicharrones con yuca.

Price: 2 pieces with 2 sides, $5; each additional piece $1.
Additional sides $1.39 or 1.79, I couldn't read the board.


--- Maximus/2 3.01
 * Origin: Get your COOKING fix here! - nsbbs.info (1:18/200)