Cuisine: Fried Chicken
I’m honestly not sure when the chicken revolution started. When an entire restaurant can essentially serve two chicken-based things and make a go of it. Sure, KFC has done it for years, but that’s something specific and monolithic. Add to it the whole “hot chicken” thing and you get an even narrower path to success. But kids these days just can’t help but hop on trends and be satisfied with a joint that only sells tenders and wings fried in a sauce that can melt your face if you so desire.
Unlike most of the eateries in Montclair, this place seemingly took off with the kids first. Because, again, they serve up what used to be thought of as children’s food. Things we used to fish out of the freezer and throw in the toaster to satiate a picky kid who didn’t want to eat whatever adult food we were having for dinner. Chicken nuggets. Chicken fingers. Chicken strips. Sure, they were sometimes shaped like dinosaurs or Smurfs or whatever, but they were something we could mindlessly hand to a miniature person whose taste ran from bland to blander. Every children’s menu — even at more ethnic restaurants — has its version of a fried chicken product of varying nugget, strip or tender. It’s ubiquitous and boring. But Rooster’s has found something that I’m sure large chains like Dave’s Hot Chicken has also discovered: if you can offer something that is trendy-with-a-twist, easy to recreate over and over and keeps it simple while providing a food that can appeal to young and old, you might have a winner on your hands.
It all started with loaded mac & cheese. Which, as far as I can tell, is a tray of mac & cheese topped with chopped up chicken tenders and Rooster’s sauce. Hipster Jr. jumped into that one-trillion-calorie pool and emerged a changed teen. I feel like he said at one point he dreamed of it. Which is a little hyperbolic, I know, but there are few meals he’s been so psyched about. Even coming back from college and vowing to “eat healthier,” he cheated with this particular thing. Which probably set him back a month or two, but if you like something you like something. But, honestly, I was confounded by the menu. I can get one tender of $5? Sure, it comes on a slice of white bread with a couple pickle slices, but how many tenders does an adult male human eat? Three tenders for $15 bucks, plus another $4 for fries seems extreme. And won’t I still be hungry? I don’t get it. And while that loaded mac & cheese did honestly look pretty delicious, I’m a man of a certain age whose arteries would probably close upon my third bite.
As it turns out, I shouldn’t have been so concerned with the amount of food, nor its delivery system. Funny enough, Hipster Jr. Jr. — whose palate runs to burgers, steak, chicken strips and, weirdly, sushi — had run out of places to buy a plain salami sandwich, and her usual ramen lunch wasn’t cutting it, so she suggested Rooster’s. Fine with me. So I strolled down there, walked in and — after some hemming and hawing over their weird menu — ordered something from the kiosk. As I waited in their pretty cool brick-lined dining room — and waited and waited — my mind started to wander back to what this place used to be. Which, if I’m remembering correctly, was a sketchy nightclub of some sort with a check-cashing booth in the front. Man, this neighborhood has changed. I am a little confounded why the food took so long to prep, seeing as there were four people in there and literally 90% of the orders have to be chicken tenders, but I guess Nashville is the South, so like Popeyes — which is billed as a Louisiana experience — things just move slower.
When I finally got my grub and brought it home to Hipster Jr. Jr., I was surprised to see the absolute avalanche of fries they included in our meals. It was a Five Guys level of in-the-container-as-well-as-the-bag craziness. I love fries, so I am not complaining. But my 1 tender & 1 slider with fries combo was more like a fries with 1 tender & 1 slider combo. Again, fine with me. At $14 I was still skeptical that the value was there — and am still questioning it just based on volume — but I dug in. But, before we begin, let’s not mess around here: the tender and the slider are the same thing. The slider is just a tender put on a small brioche slider bun with some coleslaw. Which is fine, but it’s just kind of funny. I ordered medium heat for both my meal and for Hipster Jr. Jr.’s two tender meal. Turns out Nashville doesn’t f around with the heat. It’s a little deceiving since the tenders themselves aren’t slathered in a “wet” sauce the way a typical chicken wing might be. The hot sauce it absorbed for the most part in the fry. There is an additional creamier Rooster’s sauce kind of drizzled over the top, but just looking at the chicken, you don’t expect the heat that comes off it. But even at the medium level, it’s pretty intense. It’ll clear your sinuses. Not uncomfortable, but certainly aggressive. In fact, the heat was too much for Hipster Jr. Jr. She got half way through the first tender and gave the universal “I quit” hand-to-throat sign. Oh well. She ate her fries and probably and apple or something. I ate my tender, her tender, my fries and my slider. Because I’m a glutton. I’d say the slider is the best delivery system. I’m not a coleslaw person but it, along with the Rooster sauce, gave the chicken some moisture. That moisture with the naked tender isn’t quite there and really needs to be dipped in the Rooster sauce to not eat too dry. And I gotta say, it was enough food, even for an adult. The adventure of which is added to because of the constant battle with the heat of the sauce. Good times.
369 Bloomfield Ave. – Montclair
973/566-5561
roostersnashvillehot.com
