Sunday, August 23, 2015

Oh, Keg Chicken, How Do I Love Thee?

Assuming this blog has themes, one of them must certainly be how lucky we are to have such diversity and variety in food here in Sioux Falls. Hell, we have variety within variety! What do I mean by that? Take pho, for instance.  It's a huge steamy bowl of noodles, tasty broth. a variety of meats (er, proteins, since tendons and tripe might not be considered "meat") and delicious sprouts, herbs, lime and hot peppers to garnish. Well if you are a devotee of this ubiquitous southeast Asian comfort food like I am, you can not only get pho here, you can get it at several places-- Saigon Panda, Lam's, Dynasty, Pho Quyhn, and Phnom Pehn.

The same is true with one of my all-time favorite comfort foods: fried chicken. It is truly one of my favorite guilty pleasures. It's one of those things I just crave once in a while and need to spend time alone with enjoying every juicy morsel and crispy bit I can extract off the bones.

Although there are a number of places that serve a respectable fried chicken, including Mama's Phried and Phillies, Jono's/Botski's, and even groceries and buffet joints, let's face the facts. If you love fried chicken like I do, in this town, you fall into one of two camps that are as separate and distinct as the East and West sides of town. Yes, you are either a disciple of Bob's or The Keg. Period.

Both Bob's and The Keg are awesome. Bob's seems to be more of a straight-forward seasoned flour coating while The Keg has a bit more crust suggesting some sort of batter. Both are probably brined or marinated to some extent to make it juicy and plump up that meat. Both are fried to perfection- crispy, juicy, hot and good. Whoever invented the pressure fryer should have received a Nobel Prize.

I got absolutely nothing bad to say about Bob's, but my heart belongs to The Keg. And boy, am I ever glad they are back in town. The Keg was an East side staple, once located at 10th and Bahnson and later at 26th and Sycamore where OT is now. I LOVED that place. In an ill-fated expansion attempt, the Keg opened a branch office on the West side at 57th and Marion. Based on nothing more than keen observation and rank speculation, I suspect the West side joint became the drain that required closure of the East side location and then eventually sunk the whole ship. After a brief hiatus, Keg chicken re-emerged at the Hillside on Lake Madison. That was good for the folks of Lake County and the Soo Foo folks with lake homes, but bad for me.

Well, The Keg is back. Unfortunately, it's landing spot is the former location of Sneaky's Chicken (yet another Sioux City outpost that couldn't fly here) which is the former location of Taco Villa. As much as I'd like to bitch about the location, it's a Sioux Falls zip code and I'd rather jaunt across or around town, than go without.

So, welcome back Keg chicken! I've missed you! Now start checking out some of the East side vacancies and come all the way home.

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