♣

Perfectly delicious, with or without the butter.

♣

Honey Butter Fried Chicken

Eat It, Chicago!

Honey Butter Fried Chicken

3361 N. Elston Ave. (Avondale)

If you search for honey butter fried chicken reviews, you’ll find so many excellent descriptions of the food, that I can’t imagine how I could add anything distinctive. I will say this: the chicken is perfectly delicious with or without the honey butter; adding it or not depends on personal taste. But don’t let the butter go to waste; it is fantastic on the corn muffins, too. I’ll keep my descriptions brief:

• 8-Piece Fried Chicken (with Honey Butter, 5 Corn Muffins). Why five? Regardless, the chicken’s perfect.
• Honey Butter Chicken Sandwich (Fried Chicken, Honey Butter, Buttery Bun). Austere, but tasty. It is nothing more than a big, fat piece of fried chicken, on a bun, with a schmear. Plain and simple. Honestly good.
• Chocolate Toffee Cocoa Nib Cookie. Tastes exactly what it promises to taste like. A little bit crunchy, a little bit chewy. Cacao nibs don’t have an assertive flavor, but you will detect their texture. They also have a tendency to draw out darker notes in chocolate; you’ll sense that as well.
• Dump Cake of the Day. Cakey muffin or muffiny cake, crumbled in chunks into a small cup, served warm, topped with a spiced whipped cream. Homey, comforting.
• Kale and Cabbage Slaw (with Grass-fed Yogurt Cumin Dressing and Dried Pomegranate). Very interesting. Very good.
• Pimento Mac’N Cheese (with Wisconsin Cheddar and Garlicky Bread Crumbs). Thick, sharp, distinctive.
• Schmaltz Smashed Potatoes (with Chicken Fat Gravy). So comforty, you’ll swear your Jewish grandmother just gave you a big fat hug and kiss.
• The Hill Pop (Housemade Lemonade and Bulleit Bourbon). The bold, spicy character of the Bulleit is nicely matched to the tart lemon. Unpretentious. Easy to drink. If you ask, they’ll also make it with blood orange juice: equally good.

Obviously, it’s best when it’s first served to you, but you should know that the chicken’s pretty good at room temperature, also. You could get some chicken to go, take it to a picnic, and not worry if it’s not warm when it comes time to eat it. If you wind up taking some chicken home, and keep it in the fridge, it microwaves pretty well. It won’t be crispy, but it will still be deliciously moist.

What You Can Expect from Your Visit

How To: wait in line. Order at the counter. Once you’ve placed your order, the host will find you a table. You’ll probably wind up sitting communally. They’ll bring your food to you. Free street parking. Expect crowds at peak times. When you’re done, just get up and leave – you’ve already paid, and tip was already included.

I always tip, and I always tip on the higher end of the going rate. Nonetheless, I wish I lived in a world where the advertised price was the actual price. Leaving taxes and tips undisclosed until point of sale seems inherently dishonest. It’s not an not out-and-out lie; you know full well that tax will be applied (though it’s not always easy to know the exact amount) and that a tip is expected. Nonetheless, the practice is deceptive in that it allows a business to list prices that are lower than what you will actually be required to pay. It’s a trivial point, but I guess I put a premium on simple, straightforward, uncomplicated honesty.

Well, at HBFC, they prompt you for the tip as you make the order, which means that you pay the tip before you have the food or experience the service. That kind of takes this quasi-deceptive pricing strategy and adds a subtle “fuck you” subtext to it. Obviously, you can’t gauge your “tip” on food you haven’t tasted and service you haven’t experienced, so I guess what they’re really saying is, “We’d like to charge you more than the menu prices. How much more would you like to pay?” And that’s it. Plain and simple. At that point, you might as well list the menu prices this way:

2-Piece Fried Chicken: Lists for $8.45, but we suggest $9.65, $10.05, or $10.45. ^[1]

I wonder, if you choose to pay $10.45, do they communicate this to the server, to let them know they should give you the 25% treatment?

That brings me to the issue of HBFC being expensive. I hear that a lot. I have to say, it did seem expensive. There are good reasons why you should expect it be expensive, and you can read about why that is, here. You can’t source your ingredients in this way, and go to such great lengths to do all the prep by hand, in-house, and then put fast-food prices on the product. However, their tipping method also contributes to the impression of expensiveness. Traditionally, an entire meal comes in between your perception of the menu prices, and your calculation of the tip. Honey Butter locks the two together, which causes them to have a more deliberate punch. I loved my meal and was happy to pay what it cost; I just wish that whatever revenue is needed via tips were built directly into the menu prices instead.

Ambiance: reminiscent of a college bar, home-spun, friendly, casual. No-nonsense décor consisting of hard surfaces results in a lot of ambient noise when the place if filled with a lively crowd. You should be glad about the noise level, though, because they butcher their chickens in-house, and I don’t think you’d like to hear what that sounds like. (After mulling it over, I’ve come to the conclusion that they mean they cut whole chickens into parts. They insist on using the word “butcher” to describe what they do. They’re not wholly incorrect to do so, but I find it amusing.)

A casual reading of HBFC’s Yelp reviews will reveal that many of its customers were weaned on Kraft Macaroni And Cheese, have blunt palates, and are just so fucking bitter. Fortunately, it’s been reviewed quite a bit elsewhere.

Notes:

♠

Also Recommended – Lunch. Mildly Recommended – Hazelnuts, They’re underrated. And If You Must – Flatbread. For Further Reading: “Is it Illegal Not to Tip?” from Above the Law. “You Are Here,” from the Trib.

Credits for all images on this page: hover over image and/or green caption text. Click to jump to source.

See our review at Zomato.

♠