Jonesing for HCT the week after they closed, and this has been on my radar a while. Loads of hype…read more Mostly, it seems, coming from them.
When you pull up to the building, there are lots of bright signs. The parking lot is a little weird, with some concrete dividers randomly thrown by the street, and lots of spots marked "no parking," although they seem to be available.
Inside it is a bit dingy. Tables were dirty at two in the afternoon with nobody else there. Service was, well, lackadaisical. Not very welcoming. Although after I ordered, and I had a couple of problems, they quickly and eagerly took care of them.
They have chicken tenders. Not hot chicken. To me, hot chicken is intact chicken pieces. You get more flavor with the bones in, and you get dark meat, which I like, which you obviously do not get with tenders.
The heat level is strange. Fairly easy to figure out, but as with any new place, it's hard to tell exactly how hot things will be. I went with two wild tenders, and a separate single hot one. The wild is red, but barely seasoned at all. A little heat in there; if you are not into spice, this is one to try, or even the Sober level below that. The hot starts to approach HCT's medium. Still not super hot, but a decent amount of flavor. It scratched the itch a little bit.
The tenders themselves are big and meaty, although the ones I got were a bit dry. They came out within five minutes, so they of course had been sitting around instead of made from scratch, and that probably made the difference.
The tenders came with a side of pretty darn good slaw. And a couple of sauces. I think you can pick, but I took what they gave me. I think the Goku and KO. One mild and mayonnaisey, the other a slightly spicy ranch. Plus there were fries, and these were the best thing there. Lots of them, crispy outside, soft inside. Good for dipping.
Not worth going out of my way for. If I came back, I would definitely get the next spice level up. But I don't see any real reason to come back. You can go plenty of places to get spicy tenders. I need to find a place to get real hot chicken.