Mary Hoopa's House of Fried Chicken & Oysters

Once upon a time, fat fucks could only get some kickass fried chicken on Monday nights at One Eared Stag... It was quite the hassle to get over there on a weekly basis, let alone on Mondays because this rotund marsupial is usually hibernating after boozing all weekend like a merpouch... Until now. So, the lovely Stag decided to open a store front dedicated to their fwied cheekan not just Monday nights but every night of the week! But the bad news is that they are located in East Lake... I know what y'all are saying, where the fuck is East Bumblefuck Lake? I know it's in the middle of nowhere but it ain't that bad. They are neighbors with Poor Hendrix and Mix'd Up and Greater Good BBQ is across the street. It's a cute little development they got going on over there but the area is still kinda far from everything else. Kirkwood is not too far but let's not kid ourselves, no one really goes there. But if there's fwied cheekan involved, the pouch will risk life, limb and muffin top just for a taste. Since, I'm a fan of One Eared Stag's fried chicken, I couldn't pass this joint up...
Time to make a visit and see if the cheekan is just as good as the Stag's... Parking is not too much of problem, they got a lot behind the building and you can also park on the street. Walked in and the space is bright and the L shaped lay out is an efficient design for traffic flow. It wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be which was a plus. Walked up to the bar and motherfucker... They don't have their liquor license yet. I was tempted to go next door to slam down some whiskey and a tall boy... So, I did, but there was some wicked stench inside Poor Hendrix, so, I got the fuck outta there STAT and came back over and waited to be seated for some cheekan. Maybe it would be better if I didn't drink with my cheekan, so, I can taste the yard bird with unaltered tastebuds. The server came over to pour some water and I put in an order of the whole bird right away because good fried chicken made to order usually takes like 20 minzies... She ran off to put it in and came back for the rest of the order. I really hope this will be some kickass cheekan but first, let's sample a few other dishes...

Collard greens, braised bacon, egg, polenta. Asked the server how it was prepared... She said, it was like pho. I was like, huh... Did I hear that right? Did she just say pho, like the noodle soup? Ok, now, I'm pho-king curious... And then this came out... Where the fuh is the broth and rice noodle, miss? $11 for a side dish size of southern style pho... It tasted pretty decent but nothing special that would make me pay the price of admission for this 4 bite snack again. The portion is a lot smaller than how the picture looks. I'm still baffled about how this was prepared like pho...

Beer battered smelt, malt, tartar sauce. I really liked the fried smelt at the Stag and of course, I assume it would be just as good here... Wrong. The portion was pretty large for $10, but it was so fucking greasy. The smelt was sweating grease which made the beer batter crust soft and flaccid like the image of my grandma on the toilet pinching a loaf. I ate two and it made my sausage fingers so greasy, shiny and fishy smelling that a teenage boy wouldn't even smell my fingers. I tried to eat a 3rd but couldn't do it with all that grease... All I could imagine was Lardass drinking a bottle of Castor Oil before the blueberry pie eating contest. I wanted to wring out the smelt to see how much oil I could squeeze out. There were some fried lemon slices, too, but they were also soaked with oil like a sponge. No wonder not one roundeye ordered this dish... But the pouch took one for the team and will always report back to my one loyal reader on all that's fit to eat and puke. This dish is what Chinos would call, "yeet hay". I still can't believe how oily and greasy this dish was, I can feel a zit forming in the middle of my forehead as we speak...

The Chicken Sandwich. I was on the fence on this $13 chicken sando. I looked around the room and no one was ordering this... And once again, the pouch stepped up to the plate and took another for the team. Who the fuck in their right mind would pay $13 for a fried chicken patty sandwich... This dumb fuck would to appease my one reader. It looked pretty impressive when it came out but after dissecting it, it was looking more average with every passing minute. The bun looked pretty nice, the slaw was bland and made the crust soggy, the chicken itself had nice crispy parts that wasn't in contact with the slaw and the meat was a tad dry. For the price point they are charging, this needs to be amped up a lot more... Put some bacon and a fried egg in it or something. But as it is now, it's worth maybe $6 at best. Do you know how much Popeyes I can get for $13...Of course, y'all do, I basically eat it once a week.

Turnips, salsa verde. This is not an optical illusion... This is really the size of this side dish. A couple of spoonfuls of turnips on a coffee saucer for $6. The cost of this snack couldn't be more than 15 cents... Ok, I'll round it up to 20 cents. Is there a blight on turnips that I wasn't aware of? I think I got Pied Pipered, did they use some compression algorithm on this to save space but forgot to decompress it before serving it? Who knows but I'm sticking with Hooli side dishes from now on... At least they are full uncompressed size dishes. Let's just forget about this disappointment and hopefully the cheekan will make up for the dismay display of dishes so far...

Whole House Fried Chicken. $19 for a whole fried chicken at a specialty shop is not bad at all... But I see only 6 pieces when a whole bird usually consist of 8 pieces... Wait, where are the fucking wings? If this was a handicapped chicken, I want the prosthetic wings also, I paid for it. Maybe they are on the other side of the platter... Let's turn it around and see if they are hiding under the other pieces.

Nope, no wings to be found, I got bamboozled again... But whatever, I'm used to disappointment at this stage of the night. Let's just focus on the specimen... Of course, I got the half and half. Sweet was basically drizzled with honey so I had them put the honey on the side, so, I can taste the fried chicken by itself and see if it's just as good as the Stag's... And the other half, the hot cheekan. I did ask them for the hot cayenne oil on the side at first so it doesn't get soggy but they gave me some fucked up excuse about the hot oil breaking or something if it was put on the side... I'm like what the fuck does that mean... Nevermind, just make the hot cheekan the way they do it.
So, the crust is really dark, like really really dark... Either the fryer was set way too high or the flour mix was full of spices and it burned while frying. Look at the color of the regular fried chicken compared to the hot chicken... They are basically the same color except the hot chicken looked like they used a Misto pump to spray bronzing oil on it. The crust is also really thick... Like the chicken was wearing body armor to protect itself from people eating it. You can't bite through the crust unless you were Jaws from Moonraker. Even a knife could barely cut through the thick crust. The meat inside was moist, prolly from the thick crust that sealed in all the juices. There wasn't much flavor on either styles but I would think the hot chicken would be spicy at least but it wasn't. Far from it. It had a hint of spice but there was no heat to it whatsoever... This was no hot chicken, not even close. It really saddens me to see how poorly executed these yard birds were when compared to Stag's excellent fried chicken.

This initial visit was a bit disappointing to say the least... It kinda reminds me of Shoya's new ramen joint, Yebisuya... Shoya still kicks ass but Yebisuya ramen sucks ass. Just like One Eared Stag's fried chicken slays it but Mary Hoopa prays people won't notice. But I am not writing them off just yet, I hope they can work out the kinks and consistency issues... And I'll go back once they do. Maybe it woulda been better if I was properly lubed up. Opening up for biz before you can serve booze may had an effect on the overall taste. They coulda gave out some free swill to get the patrons in the mood, instead they said you could go buy a bottle of wine at Poor Hendrix and bring it over... Boy, how convenient and generous of you. It almost seemed like they set themselves up for disappointment because they rushed to get the doors open before getting everything in place... Maybe I'm just talking shit because I'm full of brown juice right now, bloated and half naked... Talk about disappointment. My college dean was right... Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.

2371 Hosea L. Williams Dr.
Atlanta, GA 30317
www.maryhoopas.com