Chick 'n' Sours, Feeling Gloomy, 7th May

Chick n Sours. Oh yes. Oh yes yes yessssssssss.

I’m a fan.

It took me a while to get here, took me a while to try any of Carl Clarke’s food in fact but it was worth the wait. This place is chicken heaven and we loved everything. Except the fries. The fries were way too ordinary. But everything else was fabulous. Stephen and I shared a chicken burger between us (which is a monster of a burger) and a plate of the guest fry chicken – black bean and ginger, spring onion and pickled bamboo shoots, plus the aforementioned boring fries, and the charred hispi, kimchi salad cream and bacon salad. Plus a bit of bone marrow BBQ which was delicious but in some ways superfluous because the chicken was delicious enough on its own.

The ‘salad’ was a well needed bit of crunch and freshness to act as a counterpoint to all the fry going on elsewhere. It also packed a welcome poke!

The chicken was definitely the star of the show and we couldn’t help remarking to each other as we ate how much we were enjoying it. That burger! Firstly, it was a behemoth. One of the biggest burger specimens I’ve seen. And secondly, it was just delicious. Crunchy, spicy, well balanced in terms of meat to topping to bun. A joy.

The plate of fried chicken we equally well received, with the Asian, slightly sweet flavours really complementing the juicy, crunchy chicken. I’m salivating just thinking about it now. I need to get more in my person as soon as possible. 

I then went out to Feeling Gloomy to dance to 'miserable' disco. I seemed to pick a bad night because the place was rather empty but the night itself was fun. Of course, the songs aren't all downbeat and miserable at all - the lyrics might be but the music is still danceable. They played The Smiths and The Cure, a bit of Kate Bush, and that was all good fun. Just a shame it wasn't busier.