The best fried chicken in the world

It seems remiss not to have dragged Stealth, in some sort of parlous state, down a back alley in E&C in a while, so I am happy to be able to make amends. And I’m even happier it was for the auspicious occasion to eat what London Eater has recently labelled ‘the best fried chicken in London’, and my wife, even more hyperbolically, labelled ‘the best fried chicken in the world’ (and that was before even trying it).

Thanks to the heatwave being in full swing and a slightly over-exuberant night watching the Gossip at Somerset House the night before, I was thankful that La Barra, our destination for aforementioned fried chicken, was only 4 minutes (according to Google Maps) from the flat. Despite this, Stealth still manged to remain unaware of its existence (I’ll give her this one, as it’s hidden down by the railways arches and, from the unassuming frontage, easy to walk past).

Alongside the chicken - listed as being Dominican and available in three sizes - there is a selection of  South American favourites including Bandeja Paisa (meat, rice and beans topped with a fried egg); Chorrillana (the Peruvian version of loaded fries); and Ajiaco (a soup with chicken and no less than three types of potatoes). 

Be warned, the portions are big. Our waiter even warned us we had over-ordered and so we reluctantly reduced the seven piece chicken platter to five pieces. Of course, even with our half-hearted amendment to reduce the amount of food, he was absolutely correct. But it did mean the Ewing and I had dinner sorted for the next night, too.

We started with three empanandas. little parcels of corn dough stuffed, on this occasion, with beef and potatoes and deep fried. These were a huge success with all of us and were improved even further by the hommade ají picante Colombiano, a verdant chilli sauce with onions, lime, garlic, coriander and tomato that had Stealth proclaiming she was going to come back for that alone.

As well as a cold beer (nothing 'local' so we drank bottles of Bud) they have a large menu of fruit juices. Sadly the maracuyá (passion fruit) and tomate de árbol (tomatillo) were off, but the Ewing and I shared a jug of mango juice, while Stealth took down a giant mug of homemade lemonade.

First up was another recommended dish - the Chinese rice Colombian style. A huge heap of rice stir fried with soy sauce and mined through with chunks of chicken and pork, prawns, peas and bean sprouts. If that wasn't enough, it was also served with a huge pork schnitzel, salad and chips. Suddenly, I had a feeling the waiter was probably going to be right....

And so to the piece de resistance, described in the aforementioned Eater article as ‘five pieces of fried thigh, leg, and wings with a jacket of batter that has twisted and spluttered into dark brown curlicues in its death throes upon contact with hot oil’. Memorable if not, perhaps for some, the most appetising description. 

As already might be expected, there are plenty of extra items alongside. Carbs are provided in the form of tostones – deep fried discs of green plantain –and there is also an advertised heap of chicharron, crispy chunks of salty pork belly; and bofes, dark strips of (cow’s, I think) lung that have been boiled and fried. Oh, and a regular old side salad.

Of the variety of mixed meats heaped up on the plate the chicken is, as promised, excellent. Well-seasoned and hot and crisp. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, it probably wouldn’t be the first choice 'Boneless Bucket’ brigade. For all those who appreciate the wrestle with a little bone and gristle to get to the Good Stuff, it’s very fine chicken indeed.

The chicarron are also excellent, who wouldn’t like some bonus pork chunks with their dinner? The bofes are a little more of an acquired taste, although I’m not sure if it’s psychosomatic, as they are broadly similar in flavour to the chicarron – salty and smoky and savoury– just with a slightly different texture. Worth trying, especially with a cold beer or two alongside, which also perfectly accompanies the nutty slices of tostones. Dip them in the chilli sauce for extra joyfulness.

The sleeper hit was the last dish out of the kitchen, a shrimp ceviche that were served with a spicy, onion and tomato dressing, topped with some avocado and served with large saltine crackers (square cream crackers) an iceberg lettuce for scooping.

Unfortunately this ended up being placed on the table far nearer to my wife than me, and she certainly didn’t miss the chance to get stuck in. From the mouthfuls I did manage to snaffle, I’d describe it as like the prawn cocktail my mum makes every Christmas, with a little extra chilli and lime juice added. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of my Mum’s prawn cocktail, this is the very highest of praises.

Is it the best chicken in the world? Well, that's a bold claim and I'm not sure even the Ewing has eaten enough to verify it yet. (Whhhhhaaaaaaaattttt???? - TE). Is it the best chicken in London? Well, I still have a soft spot for Chick King, the pride of North London. The best chicken in E&C? Doubtless, especially when you consider that, four minutes after settling up, you can be settling back and enjoying this post-prandial view from Stealth's balcony.

Jenny from the (concrete) block

I have a long running love affair with the Elephant and Castle stretching back to my late teens/early twenties, when I remember being in a friend's car, driving around the iconic roundabout late on a Friday night. The lights, the chaos, the concrete. A few years later Stealth moved in to a flat just off the Walworth Road and it quickly became one of my very favourite places. Anywhere.

The shopping centre, particularly, is an area that's often been maligned. I would say unfairly, but, as much as I adore coming out of the Bakerloo line tube station on a Friday night, and seeing the majesty of the Faraday memorial in front of me, looking to the left at the rain-streaked adverts for the bingo and the bowling pasted to the blue plastic cladding panels, I'm not sure that even I really think that's true.

Which is why I'm conflicted that the green light has finally been given to bulldoze the shopping centre to the ground. While proposals from Delancy building nearly a thousand new homes and creating a new university campus, there is an uneasiness that lack of affordable housing and the removal of many independent businesses will help hasten the social cleansing that has all ready irrecoverably changed the character of the area. With many people who have lived and worked in E&C pushed further into London's peripheries and much of the areas unique character lost.

Due to a very complicated arrangement that only could have been contrived by Stealth, on our last visit we had to be out of the flat at 9.30 on a Sunday morning. For two hours. As she had roused me early from my bed on Christmas Eve eve, I decided to extract my sweet revenge by insisting we all went for breakfast. In the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre. 

Jenny's Burgers, tucked away in a corner on the first floor, remains curiously untouched by the 21st century speeding past just outside it's door. A relic from a time past there's a pane of glass in the window held together with hazard tape, a fruit machine, peppered with cigarette burns, by the counter and the interior decorated with Day-Glo pictures of the menu that have been printed out and carefully backed on sugar paper. There was also a little sprinkling of tinsel around the mirrors on our visit, to really ramp up the festive cheer.

Jenny's offers the JJ Burger, which appears very similar to Wimpy's - another iconic piece of British life that is slowly disappearing - bender in a bun. With it's curled frankfurter sitting atop a beefburger, I can't say I wasn't tempted, especially at £3.40 including chips, but it was even harder to pass up a fry up. And with the two guys behind the counter exuding a wealth of warmth and experience to all comers, I felt we were going to be in good hands.

You couldn't have a fry up with out a good cup of splosh, creosote-coloured and so strong the spoon stands up in it. As the Ewing and Stealth are fancy, they had a giant cappuccino and a gallon of black coffee, respectively. Alas, being extra caffeinated didn't help with the quality of the conversation much (although I must be fair and note the Stealth didn't try to read the Sunday Times on her iPad once).

I had chips almost solely to annoy Stealth, because of her mistaken belief they don't belong with breakfast. Although they were cut thin enough to be verging on fries, and a little wan, they tasted pretty good, and even better with a good squirt of abrasively vinegary ketchup. The sausage was comfortingly cheap and paste-like, just as it should be. 

Toast was white sliced (the Ewing, as she always does, ignored the sanctity of the completely refined fry up and went brown), with butter already melted. I added my beans, and a few errant chips, to mine for DIY triple carbs on toast.

While I'm reluctant to think good things about the changes that are going to befall this vibrant patch of South London in the coming months, I'm hoping provisions will be made for those who chose to make this their home and the unique character is (mostly) preserved. But for now, I was more than happy to see the annual outing of the Christmas lights around the iconic elephant that stands proudly outside the centre. Let's hope it's not the last time.

Desayuno Colombiano

As much as I love my self-appointed second home, at Stealth’s flat in Elephant and Castle, it’s never been because of the refreshments on offer. In fact, I still remember the first time the Ewing visited – after breezily dismissing my prior warning – and, accidently, put salt in the tea (Stealth had eaten all the sugar cubes) before having a mini-meltdown through lack of sustenance (Stealth had kindly bought me a box of Reece’s cereal, but there was no milk. And she had eaten most of the cereal…)

On my most recent visit I was far more prepared as, sensing she would be otherwise occupied on a Saturday morning (it turns out, she was snoozing off the after-effects of too many cocktails the night before), I had cunningly planned a breakfast stop before heading over to hers.

While there’s a plethora of traditional caffs in the area, including the wonderful time warp that is Jenny’s, in the E&C shopping centre and the Electric Elephant, actually on Stealth’s road, I decided to embrace the Latin spirit of Elephant – which still lives on, despite the attempted ‘gentrification’ of the area – by finally getting around to visit Chatica.

Positioned in the railway arches, alongside several other South American restaurants and bars, Chatica looks like the most approachable of the bunch – with its welcoming yellow décor, racks of freshly baked bread in the window and bright logo splashed across the frontage that make it seem ripe for a roll out, although they currently only have the original branch.

Pandebono or pan de bono is a type of enriched Colombian bread made of corn flour, eggs, fermented cassava starch and stuffed with cheese and shaped into balls or rings. Traditionally, it is consumed fresh out of the oven, with a mug of spiced hot chocolate at breakfast time, so when in Rome…

Dunking the chunks of bread into the milky drink was reminiscent of family holidays, eating croissants with bowls of chocolat chaud, right down to the murky sludge when you reach the bottom. A South American Twitter friend recommended topping the hot chocolate with cubes of white cheese, which apparently melts as you drink it, which I guess could improve the dregs, but still sounds a bit weird for my Western tastes.

As I knew food would soon be in short supply, I followed this with the Calentado la Chatica, scrambled eggs with marinated skirt steak, beans and rice, sans egg but with extra sausage. I attempted to ask for a stick of the rust-coloured chorizo, which I could see in the counter next to the empanadas, but somehow ended up with two English-style herby bangers, which accompany the traditional fry up they also offer.

While it was a champion breakfast - steak and beans improve pretty much anything, apart from the air quality of those around you - it was also one of the rare occasions (almost always most keenly felt at breakfast) where I wished I wasn’t an oeuf-avoider, as I guess the balance of the three main components is what makes it such a classic. I would have also loved a good squirt of chilli sauce. Something Stealth does always have in her cupboard.

As the Ewing was missing out on all the fun, I picked up a couple of bits from the deli/shop to the rear of the cafe - which are also available online including jars of their own dulche de leche and more beans than Heinz - along with a Roscón de Arequipe from the bakery counter. A crunchy sugar-topped ring bun filled with the aforementioned milk jam. 

The cassava puffs (bought for the cartoon character on the front of the packet) were curiously moreish, in a slightly odd-tasting way (like those little trays of nibbles you find in posh bars, that you’re never quite sure if you like, but keep eating anyway), but the real hit was the spiced blocks of compressed, sweetened chocolate, that the Ewing crumbled into hot milk and happily dipped her buns into. (oo-er - TE).

As predicted, the cupboard was bear when I got to Stealth’s, although she did have a cold beer to welcome me with and she worked out that Uber eats delivers McDonalds to her flat. Which meant I got ‘breakfast’ without even having to leave the flat the following morning. Good things come to those who wait (nearly ten years, but hey…).

Italians do it better

There's lots of good things about having good friends, but you know you've got a keeper when they're in the last throes of a painful and difficult break up - devastated and off their food - and you arrange to meet them so you can go and eat ramen; followed by a burger. Of course there was wine involved, and beer, and turkish delight, and possibly even some good advice. Who knows. We're still friends now. so it can't have been all bad.

Not only are we still friends, but Stealth often appears in the blog - at least behind the scenes, to spare any readers from losing their appetites. We're also still enjoying a beverage with our food, so much so that, although we've eaten at Mercado Metropolitano several times before - Stealth's flat being staggering distance away - the only picture of the food I seem to have is this box of cold leftover pizza.

No matter, I knew I could persuade her out for another afternoon visit, lured by promises of cocktails and spleen-venting and melted cheese. It also worked well for me, the weather was far nicer than on our fledgling winter visits - meaning we could sit outside in the sunshine (or in the shade, while moaning about how hot it was). The food and drink stalls have also expanded since then, giving us more options to feed the previous night's hangover, while stoking the one to come tomorrow.

While I'm sure you can get a Peroni, or certainly a Four Pure Pils, there's also plenty of craft here, courtesy of the Italian Job 'the UK's first Italian craft beer bar'. I went for a Neck Oil; not terribly Italianate, but always a delicious, low ABV, drop and a gentle way to ease myself into the afternoon's revelry. 

Stealth went with her favourite cured meat and Italian cheese combo - something blue, something hard and something oozy. A little like our Saturday night... .The oozy one was particularly good; full on and sticky, matching up well with the spoon of spiced chutney, balanced artfully on a prosecco cork.

For me, the pizza here is some of the best in London. The crust is chewy and puffy and blistered, with that lovely sour tang that compliments the sweet milky mozzarella. And, while resolutely being a Neapolitan pie, it retains enough structural integrity to pick up and eat with your hands, not dissolving into tomato soup in the middle like some, often lauded, examples.

The Pasquelina - a white pizza with sausage and wild broccoli -  is wonderfully balanced between bland cheese, bitter greens and spiced meat. Similar is the Ripieno- a pizza bianca with ricotta, cherry tomatoes, salami and parmesan. On this visit I went classic with a napoletana - tomato sauce, mozzarella and anchovies; the hairy little divisive fish giving a salty piquancy to each mouthful.

There was also more drinks, obvs, starting with a negroni (that Stealth had already drunk while waiting for her cheese) before moving on to Aperol spritzes and then London spritzes, which I'm a bit hazy on now. Possibly elderflower and apple? maybe some mint. Definitely, thanks to the photo evidence, some cucumber. 

The Jim and Tonic mobile drinks van was closed when we arrived, much to the disappointment of Stealth. But her beady eye - for possibly the very first time - spied they had opened as we were finishing our lunch. Because I'm a good friend - and even though it went against the very core of my being - I asked, on Stealth's behalf, for 'the one that tastes most like Hendricks'. Not because I dislike Hendricks, but because, having seen Stealth pull this kind of stunt every time we go anywhere, I knew it would cause that awkward umming and ahhing. Which it did, but in a very polite way. 

Still not sure what we actually got, but it was full of cucumber, hence tasted pretty much like Hendricks. Although by that point I'm not sure either us would have known. We then followed it up with another double, this time made with Death's Door gin, because it was the option that came adorned with the marshmallows, that Stealth was by this point eating straight from the jar on the counter.

It wouldn't be Sunday without a sundae, or a gelato at the very least. The gelato here is not any old gelato being from Badiani, one of Florence’s oldest gelaterias, who have launched a new store in the English capital.

So we swung (definitely swaying by this point) past for a double scoop in a cone; one of bright and sharp raspberry sorbet and another of, even better, sweet and nutty black sesame. An Instagrammers dream, and just as dreamy to eat.

Despite our best efforts I still haven't tried the pasta, or the arepas, or the grilled Argentinian rib eye with chips, or the lurid green cassata cakes, or freshly filled cannoli with chocolate chips..... But, no matter; I've got a feeling they'll be plenty more happy news and heartbreak to break bread (and heal sore heads) over.

Winner, Winner

Once, long long ago and suffering from a hangover that Pot Noodles and Monster Munch were simply not going to shift, we were blacklisted from Pamir's Chicken in Bournemouth. True, we had commandeered Stealth - with her clipped Home Counties mumble - to order the grub for the ten or so beleaguered souls that were sprawled on my sister's living room floor, but having our order rudely terminated by a disbelieving Pamir dented my faith in fried food somewhat. We phoned out for pizza instead.

However deep the disappointment was, it couldn't dent my deep love of our feathered friends. And, back in my familiar London stomping ground of the Walworth Road, I was excited to see new opening, CheeMc, 'Korean Chicken Dish Specialist' - complete with a neon giant glowing chicken emerging from a beer glass on its sign. 

We kicked off with some gratis cubes of crunchy pickled radish and a plate of, pretty perfect, kimchi from the list of snacks/starters. Sadly the (flavourless but authentic - and cheap) Hite was out of stock, so we made do with a couple of - not quite cold enough - Asahi.

The menu is hugely comprehensive, with a dizzying variety of bimbap and stir fries and other weird and wonderful things, helpfully illustrated by a photo guide. One thing that was missing are any recognizable side dishes to go with the chicken. I quite fancied a few simple carbs to help with all the spice and fat, but the closest I could find were some taro chips with strange vegetable powder coating.

Thankfully the chicken was so good it didn't need anything to distract from it's majesty. We ordered a whole bird, one half sweet chilli and one half soy and something? (after my first two choices were off the menu I allowed the waitress chose, with the proviso it was spicy). When the dishes arrived, my half draped with fiery fresh chillies and glowing a menacing red colour, I knew she hadn't let me down.

This was hawt with a capital H. The kind of chilli heat that, as you gnaw the crisp-crusted chicken from its bone makes your lips start to tingle and puff up rather like Leslie Ash melded with the Bride of Wildenstein.

It's also incredibly messy, sticky fun. The whole bird is cleaved into pieces before being coated in the crackly carapace and freshly fried. If you don't like teasing flesh from the grisly bony bits (as the ungrateful Stealth proclaimed when we took her the leftovers) you probably need to go a few doors up for the KFC boneless box.

As it was, we had no issues divesting all the flesh from bones, and bloody good it was too. Whilst, blowing my own trumpet somewhat, my homemade Korean fried chicken gives it a run for its money, I've sacrificed my deep fat fryer for the Ewing's Nutri Bullet. So it looks like I'll be decamping to Stealth's even more frequently than I do now for a fried food fix. 

Whilst we may have been blackballed by Pamir, new pretenders Chicken Shack (now renamed Chicken and Blues) have opened in Bournemouth and the Ewing and I took a stroll to their Boscombe high street branch for a poultry-based dinner.

It's a tiny little gaff, with bench seating along the right side, a serving/takeaway hatch straight ahead and a menu that's pretty similar to another, rather well known, London chain with chicken in the title, even down to the apple pie for pud (although, sadly served with ice cream and not cream).

The beer was Red Stripe, standard gig lager from my teenage years, where my friends and I would spend the empty hours between the doors opening and the band finally making it on stage smoking ourselves into an early grave and swigging warm cans of Jamaica's finest yellow water. Here - just like at CheeMc - it was served at a little below room temperature, bringing back a few nostalgic memories (sadly I didn't have s packet of B&H in my top pocket to go with it).

The main draw was excellent; barbecued chicken served au naturel or with housemade sauces - including (very) spicy, sweet or smokey  - and served with a pleasingly comforting macaroni cheese and a very good avocado and butterhead lettuce salad with a honey mustard dressing. There was also a decent mixed cabbage coleslaw, with the only criticism being it was too mayo heavy, even for me.

My fried chicken love has been well documented here, I even chose it as this year's Valentine dinner (extra gravy obligatory). But with birds this good in the hood, the Ewing may have a rival for my affections.