My Filipino mom made the best fried chicken. She used flour, salt pepper and drum roll please...fried it in chicken fat, also called schmaltz in this part of the country.
13
Must be the Dinah's (Culver City, CA) of the East Coast.
Sounds flat out LUSH!
Hello GrubHub!
4
I am unfamiliar with Ms. Nadelson's prior work. Her penultimate paragraph is extraordinary. Nice job.
17
Had it. Honestly, it’s fine, but doesn’t live up to the hype.
Even Popeyes is kind of better.
12
"Healthy " food, implies that the food itself is not unwell or sick! The word which should be used to express this quality of the food described is "healthful". Similarly, terms such as: "eating healthy," healthy diet", and the like are all incorrect. The word "healthful " is the adjective to use., "healthfully" is the verb. Hoping all readers are and stay...healthy.
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Thanks for posting healthfully(?).
5
Charles' Pan-Fried Chicken (fka Charles' Southern Style Kitchen) is a Harlem institution. I used to live a few blocks from their former location by 153rd or so street, and would go there regularly. I loved the tiny restaurant they had there with the plastic tablecloths, the pitchers of iced tea, etc.
I don't know what it is about soul food, but I can't help but dive right into it.... plunging my fork into the collard greens...then the rice with gravy...then the candied yam...then taking a bite of some chicken...diving right back into the greens and so on.
Charles' place is a true Harlem gem.
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We love fried chicken but eat it sparingly as it's not the healthiest food option. The SF Bay Area offers lots of options for fried chicken, whether it's at Brenda's Soul Food Kitchen or Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc, and we've tried them all.
But now that we're older and more careful about food choices, our preference is the Chinese and Korean style of fried chicken - tastier, spicier, and crisp on the outside while tender and juicy inside.
5
I made the big mistake of reading this right before lunch, which now looks like it will be a huge letdown compared with that spectacular fried chicken.
39
Excellent; another article to get the hipsters in and spoil it for the neighborhood.
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@kj Yeah, but thing is...that particular part of Harlem isn't gentrified enough for the hipsters, so they still be too scared to go to Charles'....unless they see other white folk/asian tourists standing outside in a 'line', waiting to get in. ;-)
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Excellent article. I am a healthy organic food eater. But now I want to make many trips to this historic hidden place in Harlem. We are coming to best friend chicken in New York City.
11
Bill’s Chicken in Pasadena CA was the best. He died and gave no one his secrets. Eat while you can NYC. These chicken guys don’t do the legacy thing well.
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No website. No roving food truck. No twitter feed. No celebrity chef with 15 locations. Just good ole fashioned grease and spices.
This must be the genuine article. Old school cooking at its best handed down from one generation to another.
67
So much exploitation goes into producing chicken. Of the animals, workers, the environment, and the predominately low income communities of color who suffer from debilitating pollution where factory farms are usually located (and the VAST majority of chicken on the market comes from such factory farms).
There are plenty of Black-owned vegan restaurants who are opposed to this kind of oppression you could feature, including Seasoned Vegan in Harlem. They make a mean plant based fried “chicken.”
12
@N And you wonder why people despise vegans.
97
Soo clever. Because they care about animals, the environment, and not polluting poor communities? But, by all means, indulge in what tastes good.
4
Because they’re concerned about these issues? Sorry, I don’t follow.
8
I am going to have to find my way there.
16
Sorry, New York, fried chicken achieves its most sublime form at Dookie Chase's in New Orleans.
13
Thanks (not) NYT for making it impossible to stick to my diet after reading this. I can smell this stuff all the way from NJ.
32
I havent eaten fried food in (at least) 5 years. Growing up in the deep south, my mother who was from south Louisiana, made gumbo and other cajun dishes often; they were sublime. She also made fried chicken once a week.
The dish described in this article (along with the photo) looks awesome. The buttermilk overnight part is the key. My complements to the chef; and I haven't even tried it!
47
Loved the article! Those are the places that make New York the city it is!
26
Although I consider chicken a very plebeian bird, my favorite used to be the "extra crispy" of Kentucky Fried Chicken, until they stopped making it.
I am against eating chicken and other birds with the fingers, but only on a plate and using a fork and knife.
3
@Tuvw Xyz
Extra Crispy could not be eaten with knife and fork - the crust would simply fly about, making mockery of any attempt at 'table manners.' Nice try though.
29
Here's hoping he keeps cooking for many years to come, falling victim neither to escalating real estate prices, or hordes of self-described "foodies" who now want to eat, post photos online, and add their two cents worth on Yelp.
41
what does it mean that Whoopi Goldberg is a "sometime" customer?
3
@Especially Meaty Snapper
Occasional.
12
no cream gravy. real chicken a la Maryland taste better. but the times even got that recipe wrong when it published it.
4
@wargarden Maryland is the nation's capital of fried chicken!
@CAtaxman
Wrong, for all the hate that Alabama gets, the deep south has the best fried chicken. I learned to fry chicken from Ella Cooper in my mothers kitchen. No butter milk but fried in a pound of bacon grease with lard to fill out the necessary amount. Mother taught her to cook many of the more sophisticated items but would not offer advice on Ella's chicken. Did not taste greasy, and the skin was crunchy to perfection. Soul food was just ordinary fare, along with all the great vegetables available in the south. Mac and cheese was eaten but not a necessary component or side. When we went to the beach Ella turned her talents to fresh seafood that we caught ourselves, crab, mackerel fresh summer veggies and plenty of watermelon, peaches, ect. If anything compared it was the her gumbo on a bed of white rice. It did not include tomato sauce, but always fresh blueshell crab and fish. I love and miss Ella like my biological mother, as well as her chicken.
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@james simpson
Fried in bacon grease with lard? No little red hearts on that menu.
14