It’s huge. It’s crunchy. It’s piping hot. And it only comes out at night.
It’s Oddbird.
Don’t go for dinner at West Egg — at night, the Oddbird takes over — a pop-up restaurant serving chicken and biscuits, chicken and waffles, Nashville-style hot chicken sandwiches, and sides (like collards and mac and cheese) that purport to be like those your Southern grandmother used to make.
That hot chicken sandwich comes in two varieties: hot and too hot. I lean toward hot food, but after one bad experience at a Texas Thai restaurant where the chef mistook “Thai hot” (which I can eat) for “Make this dish gritty with pepper” (which nobody wants), I’m careful when ordering items described as “too hot.”
So I ask about it, and the guy behind the counter breaks out into a big grin. “It’s not too hot,” he says. “They say that because there’s not a lot of spice in anything around here.”
We take his advice. When the sandwiches do arrive — twenty minutes later — they’re worth the wait. My heavily-battered chicken breast (about the size of a softball!) has been fried up and soaked in a savory hot sauce, garnished with sour pickles, and tucked into a bun as soft as a cloud.
Clyde orders hush puppies, which prove to be good enough, but nothing surprising. But my side dish of mac and cheese is something to crow about: a perfect upper crust of browned cheddar and breading with a layer of soft, steaming pasta underneath, with chunks of white cheddar melting away beneath the surface.
Clyde mentions he should have ordered the collards — and our friend from the front counter appears with a plastic sample cup of greens for Clyde to try. They’ve been cooking in the pot at least two days — just like Clyde likes ‘em.
We’re about half-way through the meal when, two tables down, Alyson Hannigan (you know — she plays those quirky redheads from *How I Met Your Mother* and *American Pie*) sits down with her twin daughters. Like us, they wait a bit for their order to appear, but when the chicken and waffles do arrive, everyone seems happy enough.
Friends have asked if we considered approaching Ms. Hannigan for autographs or a quick iPhone photo. No. Nope. I would never. While I’m sure some actors and celebrities thrive on random public attention, I believe everyone deserves to be able to sit down for chicken and waffles with their family and not have to deal with intrusions from strangers — like the annoying couple on the far side of the restaurant who spend the next forty-five minutes gawking and sneaking iPhone photos from across the room.
We leave happy, our lips glowing and our tummies lit from within, like pot-bellied stoves. Outside, the towers of home glow red-orange in the setting sun, and there’s an evening breeze to off-set the brutal afternoon heat.
We can go where we want to go, and do what we want to do — not celebrities, but just a pair of odd birds, enjoying a night on our town together.
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