Chicken and Waffles: Brown Sugar Kitchen!

Chicken and Waffles, what? Yes. I had no idea awesomeness was so accessible! Julie planted the seed months ago. There was a conversation that went something along the lines of:
“hey I heard there’s a place that sells chicken and waffles?”
“huh, that sounds kinda weird”
“Sounds up our alley for that sweet plus savory combo”
“Well let’s see what’s available”

Months go by. We would maybe have one conversation every other week when trying to figure a meal out, but we never act on it.

Finally this week we did a fabulous job eating good homecooked meals, and Julie had actually gotten some mild seasonal bug. Saturday was a looking like a day to recover: Julie was mostly well again, and we had eaten all the food out of the refrigerator, so we were definitely going out, oso it was decided to give it a try. We found out there are more than a couple places that do fried chicken and waffles, though it seems like the *the* place to go is Roscoe’s in L.A. Up here in the bay area, the nexus of chicken and waffles is Oakland. There are (at least) four places that we could find, but the one we chose was Brown Sugar Kitchen.

After an uneventful drive up, we cruise through Oakland (past the crucible, w00t!) up to an unassuming mostly windowless brown building on an oddly shaped block in between some industrial looking buildings. There wasn’t a lot of foot traffic other than restaurant-goers, all of whom had to park on nearby streets. We found a lucky spot in sight of the place, because it was pretty packed. With an occupancy limit of 49 and an inside line of maybe 20 people, we were quoted a 45 minute wait. It ended only being 30 minutes, so we didn’t even get to have a coffee while we waited, though we got to see some fancy looking drinks go by including what looked like an iced mocha with a marshmallow on top!

We got in to sit and I had a hot chocolate (I needed that marshmallow we saw earlier!) and Julie had a coffee. We both got the chicken and waffles, and I also added a side of bacon.. cause I’m primally crazy like that. Of course, chocolate, waffles, and fried chicken are pretty much not primal, but by the Pareto principle, the week was well set.

The chicken and waffles come out with the butter nice and melty. I divided it up with my utensils, all while inhaling all the loveliness on the plate, and i decided to sneak a bit of the butter off my fork… holy cripes. Apparently it’s brown sugar butter which is not messing around. I had to dive into the waffle after pouring the apple-maple-syrup on it, and I was surprised by the fluffiness of the waffle. I just knew the chicken would be excellent, and it exceeded expectations. Nicely spiced, it was an excellent counterpoint to the waffle. Truly, the combination is inspired. Service was also great; I loved how friendly it was inside, and everyone was there to have a good time. The sun even came out which kept the mood very happy, and how could one not be happy with how tasty it was.