You know, the fried chicken ain't half bad. We dropped by for lunch recently, the bartender still waking himself up. The chicken comes as two crackling-crusted dark-meat thighs, slicked with a spiced honey.
How'd he get them that crunchy? I asked the chef, Joey Chmiko. He said they're fried twice, just like his mother did it. First a dip in hot sauce and buttermilk, then a dusting in flour seasoned with Lawry's Seasoned Salt, then a dunk in 300-degree peanut oil in the deep fryer until they're 95 percent cooked. (His mother used a cast-iron skillet.) He gives them a final fry before serving to crisp them, like you'd do with good french fries.
You know, with a fruity, blond Belgian ale, that fried chicken did hit the spot. (Though the meat itself could have benefited from a longer bath in the buttermilk, or something.)
But it's the things you aren't looking for that sometimes give you the bigger kick: At Resurrection, it was the German potato salad, spiked with bits of fried chicken skin, seasoned with celery seed, dotted with scallion, and tart with a healthy sousing of apple cider vinegar (the way my mother used to make it; but with bacon). Another nice touch? The fuzzy pod of pickled okra draped over the cubed potatoes.
That turned out to be a motif of my rambles - loading up to hunt the fried chicken that has proliferated at local cafes and gastropubs and, invariably, bagging a supporting actor; what in the fishing biz they call "bycatch."
I haven't gotten back to a few crowd favorites - the fried chicken and can of Pabst that David Katz serves up for Thursday-only lunch, for instance. Or the Wednesday fried chicken at Geechee Girl Rice Cafe in Germantown. I'll take our food critic's word that the garlic-and-herb-brined Amish bird at the South Philadelphia Taproom is top-notch, though he compared the bycatch biscuit there to - ouch! - "foam rubber."
