Sorry I am so behind in the posts — My blog got hit by a spam comment bug and I’ve been dealing with that, on top of being completely swamped through the holidays. But I am back and ready for some bangin food reviews for 2009! I need to finish up 2008 though…
I was telling my friend about how disappointed I was in T-Rex’s fried chicken sandwich and she told me about Bakesale Betty’s fried chicken sandwich. I decided to go there immediately the following weekend to try this thing out myself.
I live in Oakland and I don’t really do anything over here in the East Bay so I was excited to try out something new. Bakesale Betty’s is in the Temescal area of Oakland, kind of near Rockridge I think… Anyhow, the place had a line outside that went down the street, AND it was raining. I waited in line, and it reminded me of the line outside Tartine in SF on a weekend (kind of looked like Tartine too).
Once I got inside it looked like a deli on the righthand side with a whole bunch of pastries and muffins. Everyone was yelling their orders and when it was my turn I said I wanted a fried chicken sandwich ($7.00) and along the back wall was the “fried chicken sandwich station”. It was seriously a factory line of fried chicken sandwiches, and someone bagged one up and handed it to me. There were no chairs left inside so we went outside and sat down at the dryest ironing board table we could find.
Here she is, the fried chicken sandwich. Intially when I opened the paper and saw it, I was surprised at how much slaw there was in there… I’m not a huge slaw person. Slaw aside, I picked it up and took a bite. The abundance of slaw is probably my only complaint becauase it was really wet and greasy – otherwise, this is the best gdamn chicken sandwich I’ve ever had. I seriously wanted to scream out to the world to eat one. The bread was soft and buttery, the chicken was tender, moist and juicy and the breading around it was buttery, crunchy and salty. The slaw had a freshness about it – the vinegary kind, not the sweet kind with a little bit of pepper… It was really, really good.
I ended up getting one of the sandwiches that was premade in the pile of chicken sandwiches when i went in — I imagine if I got a fresh from the fryer sandwich where the breading was hot and crunchy it would be 2349328947572x’s better, but I wasn’t so lucky. So yes, the sandwich was still amazing even though the chicken was cold.
This sandwich is also not small. It took me a while to eat and I chewed each bite to its death before swallowing.
Lastly, a shot of yours truly, in the midst of consumption. This was the best chicken sandwich I have ever had.
Bakesale Betty’s
5098 Telegraph Ave
(between 49th St & 51st St)
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 985-1213