Fat's Chicken and Waffles....Let's Get Some Southern Up In Here!

Over a year here in Seattle and I have been jonesing for some Southern down home cooking. Though, I am tempering my expectations much like I did while in SF. 3000 miles away from low country and you never know what you are gonna get. Still, I’m not one to have that stop me from searching out what they have to offer here. Luckily for me, my long time friend and dining buddy from SF Ms. O is visiting and what better time to head out and stuff our faces with as many deep fried things as we can find!

Into our food orbit comes Fat’s Chicken and Waffles. This place has been on my list for a bit but I just had not had an opportunity, or someone, to get by there and try it. It is one of those places where you kind of need to bring along a co-eater so you can get and try as many things on the menu as possible without getting lots of looks you might get if you were doing the same thing but dining alone. If I am gonna do that, I will gorge in the comfort of my own home thank you very much. But this seemed to be one of those places where the food would be better eaten fresh cooked and fried out of the kitchen.

It was a random weekday night which fortunately meant the place was not busy like it evidently gets during lunch brunch on the weekend from what I hear. That is fine by us since we could take our time ordering and eating—a perfectly acceptable hobby so easily shareable amongst friends.

if it is in the name you have to order it. No matter where you are it is a given. It means that is their specialty and you have to try what they supposedly do best. Here you can kind of customize your order as you get options for which two pieces of chicken you want—leg, thigh, wing or breast. Me and Ms O are partial to legs as we can each get our own. Not exactly sure, but maybe the chicken is made to order as things did take more than a moment to hit the table. It was crispy, hot, juicy and not dripping with oil. All things that seem the basics and simple to do but not necessarily easy to accomplish on a consistent basis. First chicken bites—good. The waffle—on its own, have to say, was on the dry side. Which seemed hard to do for something on the thin side but Ms O agreed, not quite as fluffy and tender as we expected or hoped. It wasn’t exactly busy here on our visit so maybe this was a misnomer, but we definitely needed more butter and syrup to get past it. I did ask for more butter, because I am me, though, seems they only do honey butter here(?) which isn’t high on my list of butter choices. Maybe things would have been better with regular butter? Who knows. So chicken good, waffle, not so much.

We could not resist more deep fried goodness particularly when it is a seafood combo—fried catfish, shrimp and oyster. And yes, we went salad to lighten things up some and delude ourselves we were eating healthy. It is great when you and your dinner mate are on the same wavelength! I do so love some cornmeal breaded and fried seafood. Tender chunks of good earthy catfish and large plump shrimp. I left all those oyster thingys to Ms. O—we all know those are not my shellfish of choice. It all came with some lovely dilled up tartar sauce. I’m big on dill and did not mind the extra helping of it which you can kind of see in the pic. Definitely a pretty tasty seafood plate. The salad was a nice mix of mixed greens, tomatoes, corn and other green things. You know, salad. Fresh stuff always helps offset deep fried stuff. Maybe fries next time because there was still more fried stuff!

Fat’s Combo is your choice fried chicken piece (I got breast this time), along with your choice of two sides—fried yellow squash and collard greens not to mention cheese grits and a buttermilk biscuit. It is a lot of food, thank goodness we are big eaters! The boneless white breast was lightly battered and crispy and not dry! It is the small things. I like the fried pieces of squash as I had not had it in awhile. The were perfectly cut slices battered up, crispy outside, soft inside. Like a giant potato chip, except made of squash. A big fan of these.

As for that biscuit, I had to say, this is the second place in this town where I got a biscuit and it seems before it hit the table it either got sent through the toaster or on the griddle making it like crunchy toast. Can’t says I was fan. I’m guessing these were made ahead of time and this was their way of warming it up, but toasting it? Yeah, no. I prefer my biscuits soft and fluffy, not crusty. Feel like it would have been better to just wrap it in a paper towel and steam it in the microwave for ten seconds. At least that way it would have been soft and pillowy. Maybe it is a Seattle West coast thing? Either way, I have had better.

The cheese grits were a little on the thick and sticky side instead of creamy but I had a great remedy for that. In the south you normally get some form of cornbread with deep fried platters. The cornbread then usually gets buttered up and half of it crumbled across your collard greens. Since I didn’t have it here the grits seemed like a good substitution.

**side of Collard Greens (comes with above platter)**

The greens were pretty good. Cooked tender, small bits of bacon for some nice salt flavoring. They were a little on the watery side but here is where the grits helped out. I just spooned a bunch on top and mixed them in! It loosened up the grits as they absorbed some of the water and took some of the moderate bitter edge off the greens. Making the most of what I had I think it worked out well and they tasted quite well together. Beyond the biscuit, the combo platter was a win win for me.

I will look past the dry waffle and crispy biscuit and say I am a fan of Fat’s Chicken and Waffles. They do some decent Southern food outside of the South which is sometimes hard to come by, but every now and then you come across a spot that does some tasty enough things to make you want to come back again—unless I find something better being the fickle diner I am. Good fried chicken and fried squash plus some greens is down home eating to me. I look forward to going back to Fat’s at some point to try some of their other offerings and possibly find out the waffle fail was just an anomaly. Not to mention, I might ask them to just steam up my biscuit and give me some real plain butter—if they don’t chase me out of the restaurant that is. If you are looking for some good filling eats it is worth the visit for brunch, if you like crowds, and dinner if you don’t.