I guess I should've known
by the way you parked your car
sideways
that it wouldn't last
See you're the kinda person
that believes in making out once
Love 'em and leave em fast
Another Tuesday... another Taste! Here on the weekly review show we continue with the Winter of Fried Chicken... and lets just say daddy's home with this one... (cut me some lack, there were several far worse jokes I could've made there).
Daddy's Chicken is a hole-in-the-wall on the north side of Queen Street East very close to Leslie Street. In early 2022 Daddy's took over the location previously occupied by Little AAA Bar, one of the short lived cousins of the popular St. Lawrence Market watering hole (and well regarded BBQ joint) AAA Bar.
Little AAA had a solid little run... I definitely wound up enjoying a beverage there more than once or twice. A softball pal of mine (our home field is a few blocks from there) might have mentioned that one of the owners/managers of the old bar was involved with this new fried chicken joint taking it's place? Maybe??? This is vague anecdotal information, shared over post-game pints multiple years ago... I feel awkward even random messaging him just to confirm this very random thing (hey! Remember something you may or may not have told me one summer night in 2022? I'd like some journalistic clarity and conformation now please). So yeah... possibly true, more than quite possibly not. Thank you for reading this paragraph without anything resembling a conclusion! If only I were paid by the word (or at all) Dickens style...
Onto Daddy's Chicken itself, which my journalistic "skills" can confirm does indeed exist. Phew, still got it. Daddy's have something displayed in their window which you don't see often (or maybe ever): a long rectangular picture of fried chicken sandwiches from other places side by side in comparison with theirs... even with price points for reference! Sassy. Diving deeper into Daddy's Chicken's Instagram, this image wasn't even computer generated or spliced together by separate pictures... they actually staged this in their own restaurant on one long table and took the footage of it. Must have been an awesome day for the staff meal.
I suspect the point of this display, aside from making a passersby very hungry, is to demonstrate the size and visual quality disparity between these popular fast food fried chicken sammies, and what Daddy's offer as a counterpoint. To Daddy's credit, this cute stunt wasn't firing upon any of Toronto's smaller well known chicken spots (PG Clucks for instance). Rather, the periscope is clearly targeting the gigantic end bosses of KFC, Popeyes, Wendy's, McDonald's etc (plus Dave's Hot Chicken is also in there... maybe there's some kind of specific Leslieville rivalry since sure, Dave's is expanding rapidly but far from approaching the presence of those other ones).
Curious atmosphere to the place. I recall Little AAA being a very dimly lit bar (seems a very Queen East thing) and while Daddy's can't do that exactly (gotta see what the food looks like) really gives a lot of dim yellowed lighting. Like an old bookstore, while the design has a rustic diner feel, no? Classic booths with a very well tread-upon wooden floor. As for the overall vibes/atmosphere when I came in... totally charming. Amazing how much the attitude of the employees can make a place way more like a quirky cabin diner rather than a bleak setting for something bad to happen in a David Lynch film (RIP).
The counter lady apologized/not-apologized that I'd wandered into her 1980s dance party on this slow Sunday evening, and her choice of tunes lived up to that warning. There were plenty of Bananaramas and Abracadabras for all. Considering many of the concerts I've worked to actually pay my bills... I'm more than happy to groove along with some Borderlines.
Lets chomp into the fun part, shall we? Daddy's have some some intriguing menu options: two coleslaws (regular and spicy), mac and cheese, pickle chips (huh? Pickles in chip form? Another woman was eating them while I was waiting for my order and I peeked... imagine breaded and fried pickle slices)... oh and of course Daddy's has chicken in a variety of formulations.
If I hadn't actually made my own homemade mac and cheese that very night before I probably would've gone for that as a side... but timing is what it is (story of my life) and so sandwich and just fries is our simple sample here.
Daddy's Chicken has three spice options for their chicken (CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER): the regular thing, the "hot" best-of-both-worlds ground, and the"hot hot". As brave as I like to think I am with spice... this was my first time here and I didn't wanna risk my taste buds screaming from an inferno while I'm tearfully trying to think how to review anything that tastes like non-burning. The middle option it was... more on that decision later, but first have some fries.
Fries are odd to describe in that they're so simple yet so likewise simple to screw up or truly elevate. Also there are nuances blah blah blah.
These fries lean on the simpler side, mostly a salty seasoning (not too much) a thicker cut than what you generally find, and the texture really lands into a soft fluffy territory. It still works though because these are good fries quality-wise, lots of good potato in here... just maybe not as crispy as I usually like. Still, that real potato sense is valuable (rather than a mass-produced unmistakably frozen scent to them) and these carry very minimal oily taste at all... while fluffy to the point it seems like the soft potato innards want to burst out. Please, thank me later for the horror movie visual there.
Anyhow, overall good fries though not my usual preference for texture. Definitely good flavour (and quantity... big paper bag lemme tell ya). It's too simple (salt) making the flavour very reliant upon just potato... I admire basics done well but man an extra dash of something here would really do something. Especially when the texture is too soft to 'insert joke here' about.
Onto the main event, and it is a whopper indeed (a whopper in size, not at all like a terrible Burger King product). There is an objectively enormous piece of fried chicken on this thing... I mean for the sake of scale look at that slice of pickle off to the right of the sandwich, or the french fries directly next to it. This is genuinely a logistical challenge to hold this thing up and fit this sandwich in your wide open mouth. The fact that Daddy's offers a super sandwich with two portions of this chicken? At that point I'd bring an extra bun, maybe a forklift.
As mentioned earlier I ordered the "Hot" option (the middle choice beneath "Hot Hot") which unlike the regular option has a solid heaping of their 'spicy' coleslaw on top (also some pickle slices and a mayo). Strangely, Daddy's Chicken's website describes these as "deep fried" pickles which they clearly aren't... but truly that's a small observation rather than a complaint (there's already plenty of fried goodness on this sandwich to go around).
The secondary elements, mostly the slaw and sauce, really do add a lot to this sandwich. Can't say I encounter a "spicy" coleslaw very often but this one has some genuine sting to it, with some legit bitter red cabbage crunch. Really tasty with more of a vinegary slaw element, and there must be something in the brine or an oil that gives it a bit of a legit pop of something heat on the tongue.
Sauce? It's a lime and jalapeno aioli, which wisely leans more into a sweeter than spicier profile that balances well with everything else here. If everything tried to be spicy... well everything would taste spicy but there's is thankfully some significant depth here. Likewise the bun has a bit of a light sugar sweet touch to it and is firm enough to keep this enormous chunk of chicken from becoming a chaotic mess (or at least try).
This is a nearly impossible sandwich to eat without it completely coming apart in your hands eventually, so be ready. This is dark meat chicken as well (thigh according to their menu) which lends itself even more to falling to pieces.
All that aside... this is one hell of a fried chicken sandwich. Exceptionally juicy and thick, with a loose breading that keeps a consistent crunch all the way through. Never a dry crunch, but it never gets soft/soggy at any point either... nor are there large dead zones of just batter and empty air. It's all crunch, all chicken folks.
Definitely somewhat fattier and greasier than your typical fried chicken (which aren't exactly kale salads to begin with) but never does that become the dominant taste or texture. I certainly didn't get that gross "ughhhh" draining pain in my stomach that often happens with greasy food like this, which is a credit to the quality Daddy's puts forth here.
The flavours here are really great. I mentioned the coleslaw and the aioli, but the spice within this "hot" chicken itself seriously doesn't play around. It's a consistently good burn all evenly throughout the mouth that at times had me having to suck some some air into my mouth for a second just to keep it reasonable. An impressive heat that actually got me sweating just a little on a chilly January evening. Also, very much the kind of spice that gives false security, rather than rushing up the street to meet you immediate sting. Upon the first bite I was thinking "oh, there's a little something but I'm easily fine." By the fourth bite... "Oh."
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Overall! A genuinely charming spot (solo 80s dance party or no) that makes freaking enormous and delicious chicken sandwiches. Absolutely without a doubt, Daddy's Chicken gets a recommendation: their "hot" sandwich brings a great mix of gradual heat, a lime sour/sweet mayo, a coleslaw with some zing and of course a honking chunk of tasty juicy fried chicken.
Between this and Birdie's (which I may have liked slightly more, but they're also quite different with a more American buttermilk style)... Leslieville has some mighty fine options for fried chicken. Daddy's have odd hours (they're closed Monday-Wednesday and shutter 9pm those other nights, or earlier if they run out of stuff which happened the first time I went) so it's not exactly a place you're hitting up on the way home from the bar (like Queens Head or Lloyd's or Betty's nearby... not that I'd know, nope).
I'm definitely keen on going back to try their maximum spice sandwich, which considering the more than respectable heat of the middle one... I can only imagine is probably a flamethrower on a bun. Bring it on.
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Chicken Run Around The World (tell em what you heard)
My YouTube diet is basically three things: videos about cooking food or attempting to do it, musical reviews/instructional stuff, and of course the hack frauds at RedLetterMedia.
This video below is the former, a (clearly very popular) channel I discovered fairly recently where this dude and his friends try and compare lots of fast food chains, or (like the video below) perform the recipes and judge the differences from different countries.
The hell. That looks like an insane amount of fun... why'd I choose the written medium again? I've got to fire that agent...
Tuesday Tune
Easily one of my favourite Prince songs, it's such a wink wink and the melody is irresistible... it's about a car obviously, right? Of course...
Prince was a freaking genius, man. Songwriting, singing, guitar (holy shit) bandleading... he could do anything...
...including hoop a bit too.
That's all for this week. Do I even have to do the thing anymore...
...probably not... but I will anyway! Stay safe, stay warm, don't believe any sound that comes out of Doug Ford's mouth and... secondarily most of all.. don't spill that mustard.
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