Now with 10 locations, it is an essential spot for authentic spicy chicken and homestyle sides. The spices in Louisiana-style chicken are tossed into the flour mixture rather than sprinkled on later. Photo by Phaedra Cookįrenchy’s, multiple locations: This Louisiana-style chicken house opened in 1969 and won Houstonians over with its Creole sides of dirty rice, collard greens and red beans and rice. Frenchy’s is a Houston institution with half a decade of history. Restaurants that serve similar styles of southern fried chicken include La Lucha and Lucille’s. For side dishes, choose among French fries, mashed potatoes, green beans, a salad or a baked potato. There is also fried catfish, shrimp, oysters and stuffed crab to represent additional southern favorites. According to cookbook author and former Houston Press restaurant critic, Robb Walsh, Barbecue Inn’s fried chicken is made with a simple flour dredge and every piece is made to order. Considering its substantial crunchiness, this is chicken in its most audible state. Patrons are happy to wait 30 minutes or more to enjoy this fried chicken made from a 67-year-old recipe. Photo by Victoria Ma.īarbecue Inn, 116 West Crosstimbers: Time seems to have stopped somewhere in the ’60s at this Houston institution. Enjoy a hookah while you wait and save room for the baklava.
The traditional roasted Musakhan Chicken is a delicious dish served with caramelized onions, flat bread and pine nuts. There are also familiar favorites such as shrimp kebab and beef kofta kebab served on mounds of rice, while the stuffed pigeon is a little more adventurous. It is served with crisp cucumber-tomato salad and fluffy almond rice, but giant hummus plates topped with ground beef, oil and parsley pair nicely, too. The meat is also seasoned with garlic and is juicy and woodsy. The herbs offer depth, and the dust of sumac adds tang to the crispy skin. In Houston, the good news is you can try them all.Īl Aseel, 8619 Richmond: The oregano, za’atar and sumac are imported directly from Jerusalem for this Palestinian fried chicken. With culinary innovations such as masala brines, spicy soy glazes and sumac dust, it is impossible to say which variation is “the best”. The global explosion inspired chefs worldwide to play with different brines, flours, oils and coatings. Whatever your opinion is on the quality of its product, it was responsible for sending southern-fried chicken on an all-expenses-paid trip around the world.
Then came Kentucky Fried Chicken - now KFC - one of the most successful restaurant chains of all time. It gained widespread popularity when freed entrepreneurs sold the moveable feast at train and then bus stations throughout the south. Southern fried chicken, which is dredged in flour and deep-fried, likely originated in Scotland and was perfected by enslaved African Americans. Lovers of spicy chicken are divided between the seasoned breading of Louisiana and the hot chicken of Tennessee, where a spicy coat is added after frying. Buttermilk-brined fried chicken with its durable crust is too fancy for the flour-dredge-only purists. For cooks and consumers alike, fried chicken is a deeply personal issue. A few decades ago, if you wanted to start a fight, you’d ask two Southerners the right way to fry chicken - whether to use buttermilk, white pepper, corn starch, Crisco or peanut oil.