[Rail Paul]

Kathy Purvis has a short piece in the Charlotte Observer about a recent nomination by Jane & Michael Stern.

Stop inside Price's Chicken Coop on Camden Road and the crackling heat from the fryers is just the same.

But the place just got a little hotter. July's issue of Gourmet, the slick magazine of haute cuisine, includes a rave for Price's.

That makes Gourmet the second national food magazine to discover the joys of the deep-fried chicken in the red-and-white box. Last summer, Bon Appetit picked the Coop as one of the three best places in the country to get fried chicken.

This time, Price's was tapped by Jane and Michael Stern, Gourmet columnists who are best known for their “Road Food” book and web site.

Their conclusion, under the headline “Birds of Paradise”: “It's the best in North Carolina, maybe the best in the South – and, therefore, the best anywhere.”

What do the people at Price's have to say? Beats us – they couldn't stop serving the crowd long enough for an interview earlier today.

If you're the last person in the world who hasn't been, it's at 1614 Camden Road, it's takeout-only and it's open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.

And, oh yeah – don't forget to try the gizzards.

Might be....

[joiei]

They have never tasted the fried chicken at Hopkins Boarding House on Spring Street in Pensacola. You can even ask for the Pulley bone because they have it.

[racheld]

Alas, I see that Hopkins is no more. I tried to link to the Pensacola paper article, but it won't transfer.

[CheeseMonger]

This is crazy talk. But, I feel obligated to investigate, as I'm going to Charlotte tomorrow. Will report back.

[CheeseMonger]

Report: Was damned good fried chicken. Got the Dark Meat Chicken Dinner for a whopping $5.20. A leg and a thigh. And cole slaw, hush puppies and "tater rounds". You can't order just the chicken, you have to get a Dinner or a sandwich, as far as I could tell. The atmosphere is very basic- I found that a good sign.

The sides are nothing to concern yourself with, so I won't bore you. I liked the chicken, super crispy skin, moist meat.... but..... I like a little more seasoning, and I don't just mean salt. I like my chicken to have a little pepper or something. I make my fried chicken by soaking in buttermilk and some kind of pepper, then the coating has at least a little cayenne in it. Have I ruined my palate? Perhaps. Did they do a good job frying the stuff, you bet. Did it remind me of how my grandmother used to fry a chicken? Absolutely.

Was it the BEST? Still a ludicrous concept.

[racheld]

I'm kinda new here, and would like to know what other bastion of chickenly perfection occasions the ludicrosity of the thought.

Do Tell.

[CheeseMonger]

I'm kinda new here, and would like to know what other bastion of chickenly perfection occasions the ludicrosity of the thought.

Do Tell.

For many of us GRITS, the perfect fried chicken can be a memory, a feeling at Grandmother's knee, the scary pop of the oil as a new piece is added. My fried chicken memory is simply different from yours. Superlatives like "Best" cannot be so generally applied to the vast array of the experience.

[racheld]

Beautifully put. I, too, was leaning toward "it's the best THEY'VE ever eaten." But probably not us, of the lifetime of shaken paper bags, of black skillets, of huntin' camp pots on tripods over a just-cut wood fire, of Church Suppers whose bounty and excellence of fare were occasioned by the kitchen-pride of a hundred Good Church Ladies seeking not to be outdone. They set down their BEST, every time---kept to a single-minded standard of excellence judged by each other---and no restaurant can claim that.

And we know Grandmas and Mammaws whose experience in that one cultural item would equal degrees and awards and testimonials were it in a field of work accredited by other than glowing compliments and an enviable reputation.

We don't know what those experts know, and I doubt that we care. But we DO know fried chicken

[Orik]

yo admins, are the spammers who make it in actual humans who respond to the validation emails, or has someone actually spent time figuring out my little tweak to the captcha?

[Suzanne F]

Dunno, but taken care of.