New Orleans 2008: Day Six

This is the day that will go into my history books as the day that I had the best damn fried chicken I have ever had in my entire life. It was fuckin' good.

For weeks my boss had been telling me I needed to find this place in New Orleans. Betty Sue's Ranch House is what she thought it was called. It was deemed by The Food Network to have the best fried chicken in the nation. Anthony Bourdain ate there and also said it was the best fried chicken he ever had. I was determined to find this place.

We finally figured out it was actually Willie Mae's Scotch House. A couple of Steph's friends met us for lunch there on Thursday. We walked in and were hit with the amazing smell of chicken deep frying. It smelled like ... well, heaven. We sat down, and I ordered a plate of fried chicken with red beans and rice (when in Rome!) and sweet tea.

First the sweet tea arrived, and Adian was all over that. He has an amazingly big sweet tooth. Then, cornbread. Oh holy God, I thought I liked cornbread before, but this was heavenly. I was informed that I needed to save it to put into my red beans, so I patiently waited. (Not really. Aidan and I both were struggling with the wait for our food!) And then, sweet Mother of God, our chicken arrived. Never has anything so succulent ever passed my lips. The grease. The batter. The chicken! And I don't even like chicken that much. Aidan settled down after the chicken arrived and so did I. I was planning on saving a piece for a snack later, but I couldn't wait. I just couldn't do it. By the time we were leaving, the place was packed, and people were waiting outside.

Then we decided to get some pralines for dessert. We went to Loretta's. Where I met Loretta! She chatted with us for a while, and asked Steph's friend (who apparently frequents Loretta's quite often) how his family was, etc. It was such a great friendly, hometown place! I had three pralines: original, chocolate, and peanut butter. The original was my favorite.

By the end of the afternoon, Aidan was pretty tired and ready to go home. As I packed him into his little car seat, I smelled something. Something like fried chicken! I thought maybe he had stuffed a piece into his pocket or his pants. No. We ALL smelled like fried chicken. My purse smelled like fried chicken for DAYS! Aidan's diaper bag smelled like fried chicken. For days. And it bummed me out because I was reminded every time of that heavnely chicken. Oh, how I miss the chicken.