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.

Castle Kebab, Elephant and Castle

Alongside her love of noodle soup, Stealth’s favourite food remains a Turkish/ 'Lesbian'ese hybrid - although I haven't known her to turn down much that's edible, in all honesty. This is borne of two factors; firstly the convivial nature of eating; this is a cuisine where you are served lots of different dishes to share (or, in the Ewing's case, not) with those dining with you; and secondly thanks to her father, who often worked and travelled in Turkey and grew to love both the people and the cuisine. 

So much so, in fact that when Stealth’s sister revisited one of her father’s favourite haunts in Istanbul, years after he last been, they remembered him as Mr ‘Three Rice Puddings’ (a moniker I’m secretly rather jealous of).

Happily for her, Castle Kebab, a new Turkish gaff has opened a few minutes’ walk from Stealth’s flat – there is also ‘The Best Kebab’, (ever so) slightly further up the road, but Stealth considers the extra couple of hundred metres an affront, so I haven’t been able to judge the rather bold claim promised by their name.

While Castle also may also struggle to live up to its regal title from the outside, inside, past the strips lights, chilled cabinets stuffed with meat-laden skewers, and row of chairs for people waiting for their takeaway shwarma fix, is a pleasant, if rather basic, dine-in area.

Efes are icy cold and bought quickly. Stealth barely lets the froth settle on her top lip before another one is on its way. They also offer exotic fruit juices and Ayran, a carbonated yoghurt drink, which is supposed to be rather refreshing in the heat - the Ewing’s a big fan, but I still slightly fear the idea of fizzy, fermented milk and stuck to the booze.

A saucer of piuant pickles and some squares of pillowy Turkish bread turned up to to munch on before our starters; a selection of borek (cheese stuffed feta parcels); kisir (bulgur, parsley, and tomato paste); and grilled onions served with spicy turnip juice - this same juice can also be ordered as a beverage on its own; needless to say, we didn't.

Stealth particularly loved the borek; being both crispy and greasy and with a pleasingly molten Feta centre that reminded her of holidays on the Bosporus (or something). I’m not even sure I got to try the kisir – so much for this sharing lark – but it looked very pretty anyway. The onions were good; a mix of sweet and sour with a charred and smoky edge.

Stealth chose her main from one of the trio of changing stews in the window; her pick being an unassuming but brilliant mix of waxy potato chunks and lamb kofte in a thin tomatoey gravy and topped with grilled tomatoes and green chillies.

I continued with the cop shish - very similar to the standard shish kebab, but with smaller chunks of meat, meaning more surface area for all the delicious crispy crunchy bits. The lamb was superlative, tender, and juicy and smoky; while the tomato flecked bulgar and fluffy rice alongside did the job of providing ballast.

A little too much ballast perhaps, as we got half way through before downing forks, defeated. No matter as the Ewing was a very thankful recipient of the doggy bag I schlepped all the way home, even managing to transport the two pieces of baklava back without too much syrup spillage. 

With our usual over ordering and enthusiastic beer consumption I didn’t have the chance to sample even one of their Sutlac (rice pudding) let alone a trio, but something tells me we’ll be back before very long.