fry shoppe review
ambience - cool breeze of microsummer. this kind of unseasonal weather could bring one to tears under the right circumstances. the restaurant is in a strip mall. the door, reinforced with a wooden plank, but seemingly weightless. the familiar scent of oil is immediately known, but not overwhelming (no county fair-style funnel cake smell). inside, there are two truly shitty uneven tables, slightly sticky to the touch, with 4 chairs each, and then a bar-height table with two bar chairs. the vast majority of the restaurant's front area, however, is simply empty standing space. that most welcome warm breeze rushes in again. two possibly inebriated patrons are having a bit of a couple's quarrel while they wait for their food.
menu - I first peruse the menu to confirm - all the typos are intact. they offer an enticing variety of fryshop food and similar fare. nostalgia for nyc. but I came here for fried chicken, not combo over rice, or a philly cheesesteak. small point loss here - they only offer 2 piece or 4 piece meals, no 3 piece, despite that being the perfect size.
service - the polite cashier takes my order. I get the 4-piece dark meat, and make it male. while I wait, a mother and her son come in and order the gyro burger with gyro sauce. the mother and the cashier each say "guy-row" about 6 or 7 times while confirming the contents of the meal. about 22 minutes later, my food is ready. they tell me the male comes with a drink, but I pass. they exclusively stock various flavors of faygo.
fries - very thin skinned, rather flaccid, medium-thick cut. painfully underseasoned. for whatever reason, these feel slightly british to me. not good.
chicken - completely pedestrian, but the coating and fry is very competently executed. heavily seasoned skin, craggy with a good mix of crunchy and tender parts. just about exactly what I envisioned. dark meat is "easy mode", but it's also cheaper and often more delicious anyway. unfortunately, the meat is underseasoned to my taste, making the thigh pieces fall flat on the inside. the breasts must surely suffer similarly. still, unlike the fries, salt will adhere easily to exposed dark meat, so this is easily remedied. my craving was sated. I will likely return, but for something else. perhaps the lamb over rice
final remarks: a nostalgic fryday
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