Hill Country Chicken

After barbecue, few foods inspire as much bizarre grandstanding as fried chicken. Fitting, then, that the folks --- can you use another noun in this context? --- behind popular Texas-style barbecue joint Hill Country have shifted from the pit to the fryer at their new restaurant, Hill Country Chicken. Located a drumstick's throw from their beachhead in the Flatiron District, Hill Country Chicken has joined Madison Square Park neighbors Eataly and Shake Shack to create a mini-Bermuda Triangle of insensibly long food lines.

The sunny, nostalgic clothes here don't disguise the fast food body, however, and a fair amount of scrambling for seats and wandering with trays of rapidly cooling chicken was underway while we were there. Fortunately, we managed to snag the last open table, next to a single elderly woman, who took off her glasses, turned a bewildered eye to the crowd, and said, "How did people hear about this place?"

Though customers might suffer the small indignities inherent in fast food dining, the birds at Hill Country Chicken receive loving treatment. The chicken comes in two varieties, Hill Country Classic (skin on, double-coated) and Mama Els' Recipe (skinless, dipped in flour and egg, rolled in crushed crackers). Both preparations hit all the requisite marks: crunchy outside, juicy inside, with enough spice to enliven the meat.

We preferred the Mama Els, which was a little less conventional and had a more complex flavor. The Texas Tenders, done Mama Els-style, reminded us of why we ate chicken fingers by the crate in our youth. Five hours later, we've forgotten the fries and blistered corn salad, but we fondly remember the way the double cherry pie and coconut cream pie, with a nice citrus infusion, had us scraping our tins.

A word of warning: the breasts rival the silicone numbers found throughout the Lone Star State, and one of us wears shoes smaller than the tenders. Mercifully, the pies can be had in a 3-inch "cup" size.