Cock-a-Doodle, Too
There’s a fine art to pan frying chicken, and I’ve never mastered it, despite years of trying. My mother didn’t even bother experimenting; her theory was that if you wanted good fried chicken, you went to a restaurant to get it. Ditto for waffles, barbecue, pizza and anything else that involved more energy than tossing a frozen slab into the oven. Like many convenience-crazed postwar housewives, she was thrilled with the invention of Shake ‘n Bake in the ’60s. It was “pretend” fried chicken, with no messy cleanup. My siblings and I would watch her casually throw a chicken into the bag and pop it in the oven, all of us mimicking a ubiquitous TV commercial that featured a cherubic brat with a thick backwoods twang announcing that the chicken was done “an’ ah helped.”
There was a method to my mother’s madness, of course. My father loathed Shake ‘n Bake, and if he got even a glimpse of the package, he’d pile us into the car and drive us to one of the handful of old-fashioned, “family style” fried-chicken restaurants in my hometown: the Frog Pond (they also served frogs’ legs), the Iron Skillet, Hollyhock Hill. Like Kansas City’s long-since-razed Wishbone Restaurant or the Green Parrot, the chicken joints of my youth were located in what had once been grand homes and served heaping platters of crispy, skillet-fried chicken, bowls of mashed potatoes, canned corn, overcooked green beans, gravy boats overflowing with pepper-cream gravy, and plates of pillowy, hot biscuits.
As a skinny kid, I absolutely loved those chicken dinners and could polish off a whole bird by myself. But as I’ve gotten older — and fatter — that style of greasy, heavy cooking has lost some of its appeal. I’ll never lose my craving for the fare at Stroud’s, though, that legendary nirvana of battered bird. But too few restaurants can come close to its sterling reputation, so it’s hardly worth ordering fried chicken anywhere else, though I confess to a weakness for the poulet frit served at the Peachtree Buffet and Three Friends Bar-B-Q as well as the deep-fried fowl at the Bamboo Hut.
However, a new competitor in town, Opal’s Kitchen, is taking its cue from the Stroud’s success story, offering up generous, complete dinners — which include soup or salad, biscuits, vegetables, and potato — for less than $20. At only seven weeks old, the fare may not be up to the Stroud’s standard, but it’s definitely in the ballpark. And it’s the first fried-chicken restaurant on downtown Kansas City’s west side since Granny’s Restaurant closed more than a decade ago. (Granny’s, which served home-style chicken dinners, had almost every inch of wall space decorated with photographs of actual grandmothers, many donated by customers and Kansas City celebrities. One of the latter, a local business tycoon, brought in a photograph that he insisted was his grandmother. Only later did the restaurant’s owners discover that it was a joke: The photo was actually the tycoon in drag.)
Because Opal’s is operated by John Brooke and John Sidoti, owners of the now-defunct Club Cabaret, my friend Bob was hoping that some of that nightclub’s famed illusionists — like Melinda Ryder or Rita Lane — would be doing waitress duty at the new restaurant: “It sure would liven this place up,” he said. “It needs something.”
Two decades ago, a midtown restaurant called Sarah Crankankles tried recruiting female impersonators as servers. The novelty and the restaurant were short-lived. I agree that Opal’s could use a little something, if only in the décor department; the dining room is sponge-painted a dreary industrial-blue-gray, and the few pieces of “art” look as if they were plucked from a garage sale. Because Opal’s is named for the late grandmother of the restaurant’s manager, David Miller, I suppose the staff could hang up photos of famous Kansas City grandmothers, like Joan Crawford or stripper Sally Rand.
But if the interior design is boring, the serving staff certainly isn’t, particularly an effervescent veteran waitress named Julie Hernandez, who doesn’t just take orders but also dishes them out: “You will eat some apple cobbler. You’re not too full.”
I didn’t dare cross her; she was bossier than my own mother and was just as pushy about eating. Even after I told her I thought it was too hot outside to confront that night’s soup special, ham and bean, she brought out a bowl anyway, with a side of horseradish “because really good restaurants offer horseradish with this soup,” she said.
The soup, thick and hearty and crammed with big chunks of pink ham, was superb (though my friend Theresa eventually went overboard with the horseradish). I liked the soup better than the salad, a hefty bowl of greens, dotted with bits of carrot and oversized croutons, that arrived smothered in bottled dressing. Bob was thrilled that the selection included ruby-red Ott’s Famous Dressing (imported from Carthage, Missouri), though Julie said, “You have to ask for it. It’s not on the menu.”
Salads were served with a basket of cellophane-wrapped crackers. The hot biscuits, butter, and plastic packets of honey came out with the dinners. At that meal, Bob ordered enough fried chicken for all of us to try: big, meaty breasts, steaming and juicy under the lightest veil of crackly, golden crust. They definitely met Southern cookbook writer Bill Neal’s criteria for classic fried chicken: “Chicken that tastes like chicken, with a crust that snaps and breaks with fragility — a contrast to the tender, moist meat.”
Theresa ordered baked chicken, hoping it would be “more health-conscious” than the fried bird, but she laughed when the platter was set before her, a jumble of lusciously roasted chicken pieces drenched in velvety pan gravy. Decadently rich, yes, but delicious.
The chicken-fried steak was tender enough, tucked under a paper-thin crust of fried batter and slathered with thick gravy. The mashed potatoes were creamy and smooth, the green beans firm (cooked with lots of salty ham cubes), and the biscuits nearly 2 inches thick, soft as a cushion but firm enough to slather with butter.
Later all three of us shared that day’s baked cobbler, a mess of spicy, baked apples under a square of flaky pastry and a baseball-sized scoop of ice cream. I didn’t walk out of the restaurant that night; I rolled.
A few nights later, with Bob and the svelte Melissa in tow, I returned to the restaurant for another chicken orgy. Bob and Melissa went for the bird, even after I pointed out the other options on the menu, such as an 8-ounce filet or pork chops. “When you go to a chicken restaurant, you’re supposed to order the chicken!” Bob said.
Being the rebel, I chose the fried shrimp instead, fourteen fat crustaceans, and chomped them down, first dousing them in tangy cocktail sauce. Melissa took one and ate it thoughtfully. “It reminds me of my childhood,” she said. “This is how you used to get shrimp in Midwestern restaurants — fried or chilled in a cocktail.”
That night’s cobbler was a mixed-berry number — blueberries, blackberries and mulberries — and reminded me of my childhood. I think I made a similar concoction in an Easy-Bake oven, though not so successfully. The Opal’s version was delectably tart under that puffy crust. Julie assured us that the cobblers were the only house-made desserts in the place (there’s also a German chocolate cake, I discovered later) and that the other sweets on the menu — including a key lime cheesecake that looked “just like sushi,” she said, sticking out her tongue — were professionally manufactured.
Julie was right, of course. It’s always better to stick with the homemade stuff. And in this modern, shake ‘n bake world, the real stuff is getting harder and harder to find.
