Loves Me Some Chicken and Waffles

Featured Blogger Ruthie Johnson: http://greatfoodhouston.blogspot.com

Without a doubt, chicken-and-waffles is one of the best inventions to come out of the 1800’s, right alongside the light bulb, the telephone, and industrialization. Seriously. More recently, this historically soulful concoction has found a little cubbyhole in my heart that I never knew existed. And while I generally don’t love mixing savory with sweet, I’ve developed a shameful lust for C-n-W that demands to be fed.

To that end, I’ve been making my way around town in hopes of locating the very best iteration. Fried Chicken? Awesome. Waffles? Awesome. Fried chicken and waffles together? Triple awesome.

It may sound obvious, but chicken-and-waffles is essentially two dishes cooked separately, then smashed together. What I’ve learned is that most restaurants place *great* emphasis on one half, while completely disregarding the other. For shame! Research below.

The Breakfast Klub
This place is firstly famous for its Wings and Waffles dish, and indeed the chefs here crank out batch after batch after batch, breakfast and lunch, Monday through Saturday. In terms of experience, no one beats these guys. As expected, the chicken here is 100% incredible, but they have *got* to do something about their chewy, reheated, Eggo-like waffles which do this dish a severe injustice.


Max’s Wine Dive
The Sunday brunch menu is where you’ll find Max’s Wing Cakes, an enormous plate of beautifully seasoned fried chicken waaaangs served over pancakes. Not surprisingly, the chicken here is great -- golden, spicy, and without grease oozing out everywhere. But the pancakes are just average. Also? They’re not waffles. And honestly? It seems semi-wrong to eat soul food in a wine bar. Just sayin’.


Dry Creek
Dry Creek’s brunch menu features crispy wings over Grandma’s Waffle. This was, by far, the best waffle of the lot -- airy, thick, and golden -- but the fried chicken was an overly-breaded salty pool of grease. Yikes! If we could only get the waffle peeps here to meet the chicken peeps at The Breakfast Klub, we’d be in Wings ‘n Waffle heaven. Only I don’t think that’s happening this century. Poochie.


Lola
This new Heights diner serves chicken-and-waffles all day. I went in with low expectations (Lola is new, after all), and was pleasantly surprised by the gold-medal goodness. The fruit-laden waffle is nicely crisp and the chicken is expertly breaded, then fried without a mess of excess grease. While the waffle, itself, is a bit chewy, this dish is great. Theo didn’t like his, but I truly enjoyed mine.



Sparkle’s
Sparkle’s hamburger joint has exactly the ambiance you seek for chicken-and-waffles. It’s a run-down shack on a run-down corner south of downtown. Perhaps my expectations were a little too high when I laid eyes on the place because I was severely disappointed with the food. The chicken was *beyond* salty and the waffle, tough. They are not afraid of the butter (as noted in the picture below), but even that godly substance couldn’t jack the love.


Despite their ups-and-downs, I’ve enjoyed most iterations of the dish, at least to some extent. However, I definitely haven’t found the golden standard. Any suggestions?

http://greatfoodhouston.blogspot.com/2009/10/loves-me-some-chicken-and-waffles.html

Himalaya or Bust (With a stop at a new spice shop)

Posted by Commandrea
http://teethpicks.blogspot.com

My family and I frequent the Hillcroft restaurant strip at least weekly and were on our way to London Sizzler, a modern Indian restaurant we've been to a couple of times and really enjoyed. It is in a shopping center at the northwest corner of 59 and Hillcroft and is host to a few restaurants and stores including a new spice shop we dropped into first. Chandrika Masala is family owned and has rows upon rows of preblended curries, whole and ground spices, flours, lentils, and many things I've never seen or heard of before. The owner was kind enough to walk me through the store and explain the uses for some of the items, like a merchant tour guide. He boasted that the curries are all blended freshly in their warehouse on Murphy Rd. Their rice is cleaned and hand packed with 'no powder to be found'. The store was packed with soap nuts and jaggery, dried pomegranate seeds, chutneys and myriad other ingredients to be explored. We bought a bag of chicken masala and fish masala with a promise to return.


Instead of heading back over to London Sizzler, we poked out heads into Himalaya, a North Indian-Pakistani restaurant a couple of doors down. We like what we saw and opted for a table there. The menu was written on three large dry-erase boards that hung on the walls, along with a large painting of a Mexican market and a map of Karachi. One board was for the meat dishes and desserts, one for the daily specials and the other was soley for vegetarian meals.

Five other tables were filled with families of all different cultures and we tried to sneak a look at their plates on the way to our table. The owner, a man named Kaiser, came over for our order and we accepted all of his suggestions as he took charge. The more mild chicken-boti for the boys, a fish curry for my husband, and for me the hara tikka masala, a chicken and green curry dish.We also ordered a side of daal, and two pieces of naan.

And as we were super hungry my husband asked about an appetizer but the owner shook his head.

"You won't need it."
We begged with famished eyes and he said, "Okay, I will send you something."
A few minutes later, two large vegetable samosas were sent out and we cracked them open and split them up between the four of us. They were gone before we got them.

While waiting for our food, I overheard a conversation from a table of about ten people sitting near us.
A woman was asking another older woman, "What do you call this, Mom?"
"Naan."
Near the Indian mother-in-law was another older woman who laughed and said, "We call it pan!"

A Chinese couple with two daughters walked in and sat down to eat, and an Indian man with his Caucasian wife sat behind us. The atmosphere was one of a family diner with a bustle of activity from the customers, the kitchen with it's order-up bell, two waiters running food and refilling waters to cool the happily burning tongues, and the owner keeping reign over the show.

Soon our food arrived- first the chicken boti and a big bowl of rice, then the bread and the fish and the masala and the daal. It was all so good with simple ingredients and complex flavors.

The chicken boti was juicy and mild enough for our four and eleven year old boys, but still jaunty with just a kick of spice.



The fish curry was awesome- two moist fillets of snapper (though we joked it was probably tilapia, the way every 'white' fish is in Houston, smothered in a curry of roasted tomatoes, sauteed onions and fresh chopped coriander.



My hara tikka masala was a creamy but not too rich dish with onions, mint and coriander leaves, green chilies, garlic, tomatoes and yogurt to name a few of the ingredients. It's one of those dishes that you keep eating just one more bite of until you regret it.


And the daal! How could something so homely be so good? Piping hot, creamy and rife with small chunks of garlic, which I love, and ginger, which I would normally avoid but didn't mind here. Toasted cumin seeds, fried onions and fresh coriander topped it off. It is by far my favorite daal in town.


The naan was large and soft and served without the unhealthy shmear of delicious ghee that I love and my husband avoids, but I didn't miss it one bit.


We did wind up with leftovers which I took care of last night and were just as good as the previous day.

Go to Himalaya- it's right off the freeway. Five minutes from the Galleria on 59 and it is well worth the 'trip'. Don't give me the "I don't leave the Loop line"- it's pathetic how much those chumps miss out on. Most of the good stuff, the really down-home-from-somewhere-far-away one star cuisine that trumps any Michelin ranked restaurant any day of the week, is outside the loop. The rest are just diluted versions to fit the Great White Palate.

Himalaya
6652 Southwest Fwy
Houston, TX 77074-2210
(713) 532-2837