I know, I know... The Obeast Underlord has been MIA for awhile... This fat fuck has not died on it's one reader... Not yet at least. The Pouch has been busy eating away like usual but nothing has been exciting enough to waste my time and energy poking away on the keyboard with my Vienna sausage fingers. But when it comes to fwied cheekan, especially, CFC (Corean fried chicken) will always get this bloated pile of lard up and moving. I have a bunch of reviews in the works but I know my one fan and reader needs something to chew on in the meantime and nothing is more tasty than fwied cheekan... Let's make a couple of revisits and see if the foul is still worthy to be on the Pouch's rotation.
BB.Q CHICKEN.
So, last time I went to the original location on Buford Hwy and it was pretty good. They have locations spread out around the ATL where most of their ex-pats live like Doraville, Duluth (x2), Suwanee... But now, they have opened a location in Decatur near the Square. There is no rhyme or reason why they opened a CFC here in Dickhater. Maybe they're hoping to capture the student biz from Emory or Agnes Scott. C'mon, who are they kidding, Pouch... Have you seen the demographics of these two schools? Woof! Those dorks never come out of their dorms unless it's for class or some crazy protest against 'Murica. But this location has been cursed for a long time... Anyone remember Pho King and Taziki Mediterranean Cafe? Does anyone really care? Crickets... Walked in and there were two people eating in here. That's a bad sign already. You know the other locations are floating this one but for how long? I might as well try it before it shuts down sometime this year. The menu is still pretty much the same. One girl was barely working and was constantly on her phone socializing. I tried to peep the kitchen crew but the wall was too high... I doubt there were any Coreans working here because I didn't hear any yelling. Whatever, let's get to to the cheekan...
Half & Half Whole Chicken, Golden Original and Secret Sauce (sweet & tangy), $26. It still looks pretty good. The crust is thin and crispy and the sauced one seemed properly coated all around. There's a Hot Spicy sauce option with this combo but I never had the Secret Sauce. They give you two pickled daikon, one cup for each half. Let's take closer look...
Secret Sauce. They say it's sweet and tangy and it sure was more sweet than tangy. It's sticky and you'll be licking your fingaz a lot. They give you plastic gloves but no self respecting cheekanhead eats fwied cheekan with gloves on. No glove, no love does not apply to fwied cheekan sex. The crust stayed pretty crispy the entire time and it's a nice balance. The Hot Spicy is not really that spicy anyways so I wasn't really missing it. The chicken itself was juicy, steaming and piping hot. That's a good sign they double fried it correctly.
319 W Ponce de Leon Ave
#40
Decatur, GA 30030
https://bbqchicken.com/
HOWLIN' WILLY'S.
So, they were running a BOGO special for a 3 Tender Plate (slice of bread, 2 sauces, 1 side) for National Hot Chicken Day on March 30. And of course, this fat fuck couldn't pass up mo' cheekan for one price. I got my ass there early because you never know with BOGO deals... No one was ordering hot chicken, they were all at the burrito line. Good, more cheekan for the corpulent one. I had their Nashville hot chicken sando at the midtown location before and it was pretty good. But I didn't want to deal with midtown's parking nightmare on a weekend so I went to the Briarcliff location, got a spot right at the front door. Easy peasy, boom.
Heat Level: Kinda' Hot. With Coleslaw, Buttermilk Ranch, Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce.
Plain tenders are boring, so, I got the next level up for the baseline test. It's a good tender but they were kinda small. The crust is thin and crispy enough, no crackling sound when you bite into it. The buttermilk ranch was tasteless and watery. The BBQ sauce is store bought but it was way better than their in house made ranch. The slaw had big pieces of cabbage and it was nothing special, just pretty much filler.
Heat Level: Howlin'. With Mac n Cheez, Buttermilk Ranch, Comeback Sauce.
I had to bring it on the second order... The hottest level they got. The bro at the counter literally asked twice if I was sure I wanted the Howlin' heat level and I told the bro there's nothing hot enough to take down the Pouch. He said, I was a brave creasture because he couldn't even eat one bite of it. When it came out I'm like is that just one tender? Seriously, it was one normal tender and two tiny nuggets hiding under the pickles... They should have put more pickles on top to throw me off. Let's goto the mac first... It's cheesy and creamy and the mac was pretty good, no complaints. The buttermilk ranch sucked like with the other order but the Comeback sauce was pretty good. I'm not a big fan of it but anything was better than the watery ranch. Let's take a bite of the Howlin' tender... It's basically a wet hot tender with a dry pepper mix sprinkled all over it. The dry mix is what makes it hot hot because no hot sauce will ever have that heat level... Unless it's pure capsaicin oil extract. Took a bite, it wasn't that bad but after a couple more bites you can feel the heat building up. I even produced a sweat droplet on my face, I licked it off like a skank. The Howlin' heat level was actually respectable... It's not gonna make your ass explode but it will definitely give you some meat sweats. On my way out, I was thinking about Popeyes like usual and then the bro asked me if it was really hot and I said, it's aight... He was like, damn, yo. Their cheekan will not be on my regular rotation but Willy's burritos are pretty good.
2566 Briarcliff Rd NE
Atlanta, GA 30329
https://howlinwillys.com/
