The place is literally a window down the middle of Ritch St. which is kind of near the ballpark, off 3rd street. It’s really a hidden gem – unless you know it’s there, you would never go there.

The guy working the window was really nice, and I liked him even more because he was wearing a Phillies hat!

Here’s the window, so cute!

They had a tiny skillet of 1.25″ buttons… I took one of course.

Here’s the menu…

And here’s the little area next to the food window where the hot sauce and other condiments are.

I preferred the honey jalapeno hot sauce on the right… omg so good – sweet and spicy!  So for my meal I ordered the chicken and waffles with 2 pieces of chicken.

OH MY GOD. This is the BEST FRIED CHICKEN IN SAN FRANCISCO.  Actually no, it’s the BEST FRIED CHICKEN IN THE WORLD.  I’ve never had such good fried chicken in my life. The first bite sent me right over the edge… I took a bite of the wing first.  The meat was tender and juicy and the skin was super crispy and thin (no chewy bits, not soggy), it was seasoned absolutely perfectly. Turn on the vacuum, this box of food is ready to get inhaled.

The skin was awesome because it wasn’t oily and greasy like a lot of fried chicken. It was absolutely perfect – thin, not too much breading, the seasoning was flavorful, and I ate it all down to the bone. I usually don’t go so far as to eat every last crumb of breading, but I couldn’t stop myself.  The chicken was really good to dip in the hot sauce, in between bites of waffle (I preferred the green one).

The waffle was also very excellent. It was crispy on the outside and soft and moist on the inside, which was perfect for the syrup, which was absorbed right away after pouring it on. The waffle was savory and filling yet it was not heavy and soggy, even after being covered in syrup. Together with the chicken it was the perfect combination.

There’s not really anywhere to sit and only a 3ft counter to stand at… but there’s a loading dock across the street that people sit on to eat… everything’s to go so you can either sit there or go back to your car or office.

So, the chicken is like a DRUG.  It’s been a day now and I’m still thinking about it… I definitely see myself measuring all future chicken and waffles against the chicken and waffles from Little Skillet… paradise in my mouth! I can’t wait for this chicken to get back in my body, it was that good (holy crap!).

Little Skillet
360 Ritch St
San Francisco, CA 94107
website

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HOLY CRAY to the 5th…. this place is AWESOME. It’s kind of fancy inside but don’t be fooled, you can be as dressy or casual as you want. There were people in jeans (including myself) and people semi-dressed up (after churchers). They were playing Barry White and Aretha Franklin… perfect!

I took one look at the menu and knew instantly what I would order: CHICKEN FRIED BENEDICT. I got a side of bacon too (applewood smoked) and Hav and I split an order of the beignets as a morning appetizer. I’m going to post the photo of the chicken fried benedict first, because I want that image to appear on the homepage…. lol.

NOTE: Bacon was extra… the dish doesn’t come with it, I just put it on the plate to make the plate look fuller. Basically, the dish is called “Chicken Fried Benedict”. It’s fried chicken (boneless) atop an English muffin, with a poached egg on top, covered in hollandaise sauce. They also give you a little side of their house special smokey hot sauce, mmm.

I’m not the hugest benedict person mainly because it’s too wet and mushy, but I decided to try this dish because the idea of juicy fried chicken in the morning sounded perfect. Let me tell you, this dish is AMAZING. Everything about it was awesome – I think the fried chicken really balanced out the soft liquidy/creaminess of the benedict. The hot sauce was also super yummy and it had the perfect ratio of heat to hotness to smokiness. My only suggestion would be to add toast or home fries or something else as a side item because I would’ve liked something to dip in the sauce.

Now check out the beignets:

The beinets were just simply to die for. They are soft and light and have a sweet sugary buttery flavor. The powdered sugar really give them an extra kick. They’re very rich for being so light… soooo good we even took the last one home!

Hav ordered grits with her meal. As much as I love corn, I’ve never really been a huge grits person – but the grits at Pican are seriously so good I would add them to my last meal list. These grits are so buttery and corny – you know what I mean! They have an extra kick of the corn flavor – salty, sweet and buttery corn. I was already stuffed from the chicken benedict and I couldn’t stop myself from eating these grits. I will definitely order a side for myself next time…. and had I known I was going to eat the grits I would’ve taken a photo of the dish without spoonmarks… sorry!

Lastly here’s a photo of my orange juice and latte. What a nice simple presentation!

Pican is A-CLASS… LOVE IT and can’t wait to go back and try something else!

Disco fries all the way baby!

2295 Broadway
(between Grand Ave & 23rd St)
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 834-1000
www.picanrestaurant.com

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oooh the mystery’s killing me!

Voila!

The first bite. It was ok. Honestly, at first bite I was expecting to sink my teeth into a juicy chicken patty smothered in buffalo sauce and blue cheese.  It was really dry and there was hardly any sauce on it… WTF.  I was deteremined to try to like it, so I took a few more bites…

This is what happened after I took a few bites out of each of the sandwiches.  You can obviously tell that there was an excess of bread.  It’s not that these sandwiches were that good that I even ate this much… I was freakin starving!

One of my worst pet peeves is ordering sandwiches with an excess of bread… not enough meat or cheese or whatever’s supposed to be inside, and the Mini Buffalo Ranch Chicken Sandwich was definitely a victim of too much bread (and dry).  Disappointing…

Jack In The Box
1257 Park St
Alameda, CA 94501
(510) 522-8865
www.jackinthebox.com

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(Yes, I live in West Oakland). For those of you who don’t know anything about West Oakland, it is very industrial and not quite the developed picture-perfect neighborhoody kind of place you’d imagine when you think of “neighborhood”. I like it for convenience, but there’s nothing to do… no bars, restaurants, shops… it’s the “untouched” part of Oakland.

Anyway, so when we got there, it was really crowded. We ended up standing there and waiting about 20 minutes for a table which wasn’t very fun, but eventually we got a table. Brunch on the weekend ends at 3pm and we got there around 2:30 so we just made it!

My friend said they had fried chicken and waffles at this place so I decided that’s what I would have even before we arrived. I’ve never had this dish before and I’ve always wanted to try it, so this was perfect. It’s funny because just a few days before I was watching the Food Network about chicken and waffles, mmm so I think it was destiny that we had to come to this place.

Check it out:

Now, this picture is just alright… I took it with my iphone because I didn’t bring my good camera… but you can get the idea. Yes, that is a big scoop of butter on top of the waffle and there is a little thing of cider syrup above the chicken.

Like the organized eating Leo that I am, I ate the waffles first, then the chicken. The waffles were good but definitely not substantial enough. They were interesting because they were actually really “light” tasting, vs. other waffles I’ve had, and also slightly crispy. Actually, I wasn’t even close to feeling full after I finished this plate of food… I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. The cider syrup was good and light and it wasn’t so thick and gooey like other syrups, it was more viscous and “thin”, if you know what I mean. I guess I’m used to eating softer, thicker, more substantial waffles, that’s all.

The chicken was good. It was well seasoned and skin was thin and crispy and had a slight bite to it. Yum. It was fried just right and the meat was tender and juicy.

Lastly, I do have to mention that although the food was awesome, it was a really loud inside. For sound/ambiance, it was one of the loudest places I’ve ever been to that wasn’t a bar. They should throw some carpets up on the walls or something… I felt like I was screaming across the table to my friends.

Be warned: OVERPRICED. I understand you’re paying for a meal from an award-winning chef, but really… we live in the Bay Area where amazing food is everywhere. The place is loud and overpriced. It’s good every now and then though.

Overall, I liked this meal and had a decent experience. I want to give it a 3.5 but I can’t do half fries. It set me back about $14 though for the meal plus $2 for the syrup (doesn’t come with the waffle), but it’s ok, I will probably return to the Brown Sugar Kitchen.

Brown Sugar Kitchen
2534 Mandela Pkwy
(between 26th St & Campbell St)
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 839-7685
www.brownsugarkitchen.com

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Overall, it was a good sandwich. Moist, filling and leaving you feeling light and refreshed.  Also, the fries at Ayola are some of my favorite in the city – they are chock full of potato!

This was a good lunch. The fries are so good they keep me comin back for more…

Ayola
118 New Montgomery Street
(between Minna St & Mission St)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 348-0808

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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

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Yesterday was a really cold day and I was dying to eat something warm and filling so I thought I’d give the Chili Up a shot.  I didn’t really want anything too heavy (like beef) so I opted for the chicken and corn chili, which was really rice and chicken, covered in sauce, covered in cheese, topped with a big handful of chopped red onion, cilantro and a lime.

Mmmm, doesn’t it look good?  Well it doesn’t taste good, that’s for sure.  This was the warmest blandest spoonful of grossness I’ve eaten in ages.  Frankly, it was like putting a spoonful of warm, tasteless mush in your mouth…. no flavor, only the strong pungent-ness of the cilantro and onion.

Five hours after I finished eating this dish I was still burping up onions and tasting them in my mouth.  Gross!  I dont know what was in this “chili” but I will never eat it again!!

Here’s a shot of Crocker Galleria from the top floor.

Lunch: thumbs down!

Chili Up!
50 Post Street
Crocker Galleria
(between Kearny St & Lick Pl)
San Francisco, CA 94104
(415) 693-0467

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I had Shrimp Tempura Maki, Hamachi and Yellowtail Sashimi and Chicken Donburi with egg.

The shrimp tempura maki was pretty good.  The only issue I had with it was that the shrimp tempura wasn’t freshly cooked — either they pre-cooked the pieces to use in the maki or they didn’t fry it long enough because the tempura had no crunch… (but the finely sliced pieces of cucumber did).  It was interesting to me to have cucumber in the shrimp tempura maki – most places either do a simple shrimp tempura with nothing else or sometimes with avocado, but I’ve never really seen the basic shrimp tempura maki with both avo and cucumber.. Anyhow I was very impressed with how fine the pieces of cucumber were sliced.

Above is the sashimi.  It was super fresh, nice and chilled and just melted in your mouth.

I really liked the chicken donburi at Sanraku.  Not only were there very fresh ingredients (onion, pepper, green beans) but the chicken was also nice breast meat and was juicy and tender.  I’ve had bad chicken donburi at places that use gross rubbery dark meat and I have to say that Sanraku really does a good job with this dish.

For those of you who have never had this dish, there is rice underneath these sauteed veggies and meat (and egg).  On top of the rice is a sweet donburi sauce and it is traditionally covered on top with a fried egg (in my case it was scrambled and wasn’t included with the dish).  Anyhow, it was really good, and I definitely suggest getting it with a nice fried egg on top – totally rules.

Thank you Sanraku for a great lunch!

Sanraku
101 4th St
Inside Metreon
(between Howard St & Minna St)
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 369-6166
www.sanraku.com

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So, the reason we went back to T-Rex is because we liked it so much last time (read previous post here) and we wanted to try out more things on their tasty menu. It was pretty busy for a Wednesday lunch.  Maybe there were alot of people in the area on their lunchbreak – the place was definitely packed.  One of the reasons I was also really excited today to go to T-Rex was to try the Chicken Fried Bacon appetizer.  YES, you heard me, CHICKEN-FRIED-BACON.

The other things we ordered included… Mac and Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, Deviled Eggs and the Fried Chicken Sandwich. I ate this food about 8 hours ago and I can honestly tell you that I am STILL FULL.

Onto the food… there are alot of photos in this post!

Started off with a Hoegaarden…

Mexican Coke – T-Rex has a nice selection of bottled sodas on the menu.

[above] Chicken Fried BACON.  I never had Chicken Fried Bacon before.  It was interesting… not really what I thought it would be.  There were two dipping sauces – a Dino-Mite Mustard and Ranch.  The Dino-Mite mustard was definitely infused with horseradish and had a nice little bite to it… I actually preferred it to the ranch for this appetizer.  Check out the bite-shot:

I’m glad I tried this, but I have to say – I dont know if I’d get it again.  Not that it wasn’t good – but the bacon became kind of lost in the breading and it was more about the breading than the bacon… You could still taste the bacon though, which btw, was cooked perfectly.  I guess I was expecting it to be a little saltier or something…hmph.

Here’s a shot of the deviled eggs.  It came with a little handful of arugula salad as well.  These were just OK.  There are alot of variations to deviled eggs and this version was definitely more yolky than other my version which has a little more mayo and mustard, making the yolk part sweeter and more tangy.  Ehh.

For lunch, Hav ordered sides of Mac & Cheese and Mashed Potatoes.  The mac and cheese was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.  You definitely get enough for a whole meal and it was rich, creamy and super cheesy (sharp cheddar and parmesan).  What I liked best is that it was made with orecchiette pasta – my favorite!  This dish alone is worth disco fries… hands down!

Here’s the mashed potatoes.  They were also just OK.  They mixed very well, almost as smooth as a puree… definitely needed MORE BUTTER!  They are called “Mashed Potatoes with Smoked Garlic and Chives”… I think if they had just a bit more butter they would be better… somehow they just tasted a little too bland.

This is the Fried Sonoma Chicken Breast with Ham, Gruyere and grilled Scallion Aioli Sandwich.  It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. Being that T-Rex is a BBQ joint, I was expecting a piece of fred chicken – you know, with the big chunky pieces of breading, with a slice of ham and cheese on a nice kaiser roll or something of that sort… but I got chicken cordon bleu instead on a VERY soft roll.  This roll was sweet and so soft that the first thing to come to my mind were steamed Mcdonalds burger buns (no offense!).  It didn’t taste like McDonalds, but it felt as soft as McDonalds.

The chicken breast was very juicy, moist and tender.  It was really good.  The breading on the chicken breast was the little fine kind – a pretty thin layter of crispy breading.  The ham was good too but there was only 1 thin slice so the flavor of the ham kind of got lost in the sandwich since there was so little of it.

What saved this dish were the BBQ potato chips… LOOK AT THEM!

These chips are AWESOME.  They are thick cut with a great crunch, and the BBQ seasoning is sweet and salty.  I love these chips.  I usually opt to substitute fries when chips are involved with sandwiches, but at this place, the chips rule!

We were completely stuffed but we had to check out the dessert menu.  Behold the pumpkin spice cupcake, doesn’t it look cute?  Well, sorry to bust your bubble but it was pretty dry, and the icing was kind of hard and tasteless… don’t get it, go to Teacake in Emeryville instead.

Here is the Devil’s Food Cake and a latte.  The cake was also just OK.  The icing wasn’t really icing it was more of an aerated style frosting… so it crumbled when you cut into it.  The cake wasn’t very moist either… it had a very subdued chocolate flavor, which was kind of deceiving from the looks of it.  Looked good though…. guess T-Rex isn’t into baking as much as they are into BBQ-ing.  At least I know now!

Ahhh!  You’ve made it to the end!! Here is a shot of myself entering a serious food coma…

Today’s visit was good, not great:

T-Rex Barbecue
1300 10th St
(between Camelia St & Gilman St)
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 527-0099
www.t-rex-bbq.com

The post T-Rex Berkeley: Chicken Fried Bacon, Mac & Cheese, Chicken Sandwich, etc appeared first on Fryhole.

So what is the Vietnamese Crepe you say? It kind of looks like an omlet – it is a sort of crispy pan fried rice flour folded-over shell stuffed with chicken, shrimp and bean sprouts (mung beans). They also make it with turmeric and cornstarch so it has a nice golden color and a yummy corn-esque flavor. The crepe itself is for the most part, is pretty thin… it should be both chewy on the inside and crisp on the outside, if that makes any sense.

Today I went at lunchtime which was a completely different experience than going at dinner which I usually do. This was the first time in 5 years that I’ve gone to this place when my 2 favorite waiter dudes weren’t working – it was a woman and another guy (they were both very nice, don’t get me wrong). And they had an easy listening radio station playing too. I never noticed music before in there, so maybe it’s just a lunchtime thing… it was nice though, and it was also nice how it wasn’t so crowded and there were other “singles” eating alone too.

There must be a different cook during the day than night (duh), because there was only one difference in the crepe today than how it’s usually made at night. There were small scallion slices cooked into the crepe, they aren’t usually there at night. …No, seriously, I could talk about the Vietnamese crepe all day. Anyway, onto the pics!

[above] Fish Sauce!!

[above] Post-fish sauce

I <3 Vietnamese Crepe = DISCO FRIES!!

Sunflower Authentic Vietnamese Restaurant
3111 16th St
& 506 Valencia
(at Valencia St)
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 626-5022
www.sunflower-restaurant.com

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