Fried Chicken Friday

LOWERY'S RESTAURANT
Tappahannock, VA
ZERO Xmas Trees

So I was down home this weekend, and since I hadn’t had it in about 20 years decided to swing by Lowery’s and see if the chicken was how I remembered it (see previous post on it.) RRTHUR (yes ladies, THAT Rrthur) and I went to the carry-out section in the back of the restaurant and ordered the 2-piece white meat with 2 sides meal, along with an iced tea.

$10.10

Are you fucking kidding me? $10 for 2 pieces?!?!?! In TAPPAHANNOCK??!! And the place was packed, how the fuck can these shitkickers be okay with these prices? You’d think an advantage of living in a tiny Southern town would be cheap restaurant food, but Christ. For $10 I could get a 2-piece meal in Times Square, and I wouldn’t have to live in a hick town and watch my wife gain 400 pounds 3 minutes after saying “I do.” Unreal. Side note: I think global warming might be affected by my hometown. Seriously, if you stacked all the backfat I saw end to end it wouldn’t actually reach the sun, because it would melt as it got close and fry the whole earth like one big fat ball of bacon. I actually saw one woman who was about 4’11 and 250lbs that had a t-shirt that said “I’m Sexy in the Back.” Um, no, you’re not. Well, unless by “back” you mean in the back of a truck chewing on a bale of hay. Maybe she’s confused, so let me help: if you’re closer in body type to Louie Anderson than Pam Anderson, you are not sexy. Period.

Anyways. Back to the chicken. Not how I remember it. It actually looked good – crispy, golden brown. Crust clung perfectly to the meat. A good start. Then I bit into it. Turns out I could’ve saved about $9 by just filling up a bowl with a pound of salt and leftover fish oil. Not great, in other words. Only in a town like this could a semi-famous restaurant who made it bones on “famous” fried chicken, while the rest of the world is siphoning itself off trans fats and vegans wanna separate their stuff from the vegetarians who don’t want their tofu touching my brontosaurus puffs, say “fuck it, throw the chicken in with the fish grease….and charge ‘em $10.” How are they still in business? Who falls for this shit? And I know that for damn sure if the redneck who ordered after us knew we were in from Brooklyn he would’ve chuckled/sneered at us, that in NY we’d pay twice as much and it wouldn’t be “the real thing.” Hmm. Well. Maybe the fried chicken I could buy up here in Brooklyn might not be “the real thing”, but at least it'd be “tasty” and “not cost more than your wife’s Crisco Double-Dipped Butterfinger Crossan-wich” and, you know, “not fish.”

I won’t waste time on the pathetic sides other than to say that here we are in the middle of a county that is 99.8% farmers (the 0.2% being of course myself an Ringo, the local celebrity vagabond who lives in a tree house), the local hometown restaurant says "no thanks, fuckface!" to the local farmers' offerings and instead choosing to go with a single, tiny scoop of instant mashed potatoes. You know, “the real thing.” $10.10

Anyways. Disappointing. And it’s not like it’s the old days and there’s no other game in town; you’re better off going to one of the other 9000 joints around. Or sticking your head in the river and waiting for a rockfish to shit in your mouth, whichever.