Harold's Chicken & Ice Bar

Chicago is a great food city with some of the best restaurants in the nation and the world. And, of course, Chicago is also known for their casual foods like hot dogs, Italian beef, steaks and pan pizzas. Fried chicken is not one of them... But there is a local favorite which some people swear by, Harold's Chicken Shacks. How would they size up to the famous Southern fried chicken down here? Time to find out...

Half Chicken Mixed. You get a breast, leg, thigh and wing... Your standard mix, cool. Crust looks pretty nice. Crispy and hot as expected with a light coating, but their "peppery" flour mixture lacked any real seasoning or just not enough of it. All you taste is the oil it was fried in. I opted out on them dousing their "hot sauce" all over my cheekan when I found out it was just regular old store bought hot sauce, either Texas Pete or Frank's... Yeah, the server didn't know which and it's suppose to be one of their signature moves on their chicken. Frank's is definitely better than Texas Pete but come on, seriously? I got it on the side to see which sauce it was... And, yep, it was the crappier one, TP, not surprised. Was it a bad fried chicken? No, but it won't compete against many other local favorites in town, not even close. I would say it was similar to Church's old recipe, where the crust is thinner and crispy but super greasy inside, before they changed it a couple years ago to be more on par with Popeyes' crust. And of course, when you deep fry cheekan more than necessary, the white meat gets dried out but the dark meat still came out ok... Which is exactly what happened. The fries were dusty old brown bag fries that were not even cooked properly- limp, tepid and starchy inside. The tiny plastic sauce-cup size of coleslaw was not bad. Oh, there were also 2 slices of white bread on the bottom to complete the Harold's signature chicken plate, to absord the runny grease is my guess.

Gizzards & Wings. I love gizzards but these were just ok. They didn't seem like they were parboiled or brined in buttermilk prior to frying. They were put through the same bland flour mixture as the chicken... I think everything on the menu is. While it was nice and crispy, the gizzards itself were just a bit too tough. It was like chewing a giant rubberband. The wings were average size but also over fried and came out dry on the inside. But yet the fries were limp and cold, once again. This was served with their "mild sauce" splattered on top but ask for it on the side because that shit turned out to be just ketchup with a squirt of the cheap TP hot sauce. That's worst than the Big Mac's secret jizz.

A pimp chasing a ghetto pigeon with an axe. How. Fucking. Awesome. Is. That.

This cheekan isn't gonna blow your mind... But the cheekanhead around the corner definitely would for a piece of that bird. It's comparable to Curly's on the westside but I think Curly's handle their product with a little more care and finesse. And their enhanced store shelf hot sauce is better, too... But that doesn't say much, either.

This is quite the joint if you're into greasy fried foods, incoherent local dialect and unbearable loud music (especially, with a band playing). For me, it isn't crave-worthy enough to risk life and limb late at night and that ice bar gimmick will never catch on (two "ice bars" in this town is one too many). I didn't even get a drink (I know, how sacrilegious!) because I saw how some of the drinks were made... Ah, no thanks, I rather take my chances on the water here. I don't see a long future unless they start doing chicken and waffles but hey, you never know... Look at Waffold. Oops, my bad.

1 Star.

349 Edgewood Ave SE
Atlanta, GA 30312
(404) 577-0001