They Do Chicken Right
Roscoe’s stands and delivers
By Richard Foss
You can get better chicken in L.A. – but not much better. I can think of one or two places where I might even like the waffles a bit more, but it’s a tough call. If you want chicken and waffles in the same place, and if you want them anytime from 8:30 a.m. until almost 4 a.m., you’ve gotta be thrilled that Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles exists.
I had been to the branch on Pico, where hipsters, hobos, and nattily dressed families who look like they just got out of church seem to be there at all hours, but never to the location in Hollywood where it all began. I decided it was worth the longer drive to get the same food because I wanted to experience the original, and see where L.A. learned about Harlem’s contribution to the culinary world.
First, of course, there was the matter of parking, which is predictably atrocious. We got lucky and found a spot after a few minutes of circling, and had only a short walk to the brick building with the glowing rooster superimposed on a waffle. From outside it looks like a bar, complete with unsmiling security guard, but inside it’s bright, cheerful, and has that homey patina you get in a restaurant that has been serving for a while.
We don’t spend much time with the menu – heck, this place’s name is the menu. There are chicken salads and a chicken omelette on the menu, as well as fried chicken livers (but strangely, no chicken soup), but just about everybody we see is eating chicken and waffles. My companion orders accordingly – a quarter chicken and two waffles ($10.20), while I decide to try something different – the “Lord Harvey” special of a half chicken smothered in gravy with a biscuit ($11.90). She ordered a soft drink, I picked a Heineken.
The orders arrived quickly, and none of the time was spent on creating a fancy presentation – this is Southern style as filtered through New York. The chicken had a mildly spiced breading which was very crispy and stayed attached – no chance here of taking a bite of chicken and having the breading come off in a sheet. It was juicy (OK, greasy), but oh, so good. The waffle comes with an amount of butter unhealthy even by the standards of a fried chicken and waffle place – we had to draw the cholesterol line somewhere, and off-loaded more than half of it onto an unused bread plate. That aside, it was an excellent waffle with a slightly nutty flavor to the batter, though just a bit more dense than my Platonic ideal of a waffle, which is both light and crisp. I did snag several pieces from my companion even so until she gently but firmly threatened me with a fork.
I took this as an indication that I should investigate my own dinner, which was the same crisp, breaded chicken topped with an oniony, rich gravy. This should have removed it from the realm of finger food, but didn’t – I couldn’t get the last bits of meat with my knife and fork, so just gave up and gnawed away. The gravy made that wonderful chicken even better, and I’m going to get it next time. Unfortunately the sides were less impressive – the grits were thin and had another overwhelming serving of butter, and the biscuit was dense and heavy rather than fluffy. Roscoe’s house of grits and biscuits, this isn’t.
They do offer dessert here, candied yams or sweet potato pie, but both of those are usually too sweet for me, and our friendly server told us that they were even too sweet for her. She was sweet, too, businesslike but hospitable, and the combination of good, cheap food and attentive service left us all smiles as we left. Roscoe’s has been an institution in this town for 40 years, and though the branches have gotten fancified – the one in Long Beach even has a bar, for heaven’s sake – the original funky space still delivers the goods.
Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles, 1514 N. Gower St., Hollywood, (323) 466-7453 – also in Long Beach, Pasadena, Inglewood, and L.A. Open 8:30 a.m.-midnight Mon.-Thurs., 8:30 a.m.-4 a.m. Fri.-Sun. Beer and wine served, wheelchair access OK to part of restaurant.
Published: 06/25/2008
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