Ladies that Lunch - Miss Polly's Soul Cafe

Since Natalie had never had Gus's Fried Chicken, we decided it was a must for lunch last week.  I was very excited and had my mouth SET for some crunchy goodness.  I don't know what they put in that stuff but ooooo-weeeee,  I was ready.

We decided to go early because Gus's gets extremely, extremely busy around lunch.  Every day.  Seems like every time a food show comes in town, they stop at Gus's so they get a lot of publicity.  And it's a local fave.

11am.
I park.
I walk up with another lady.

Closed.

Closed?!!??!?!?!?!?!

Argh.  Lady and I shared a sad look and both got in our car and on our phones.  I thought in despair, "Now what?!"  I felt like that fried chicken craving was just going to be an itch that I couldn't scratch and why even bother.  I might as well just go back to bed...

I'm a little dramatic when I'm hungry.

Well, I called the ladies and they had a quick solution-  Miss Polly's Soul Cafe.  It had been on our List-To-Try for a while and just a couple blocks away on Beale.  And best of all, we could get some fried chicken.

We were the only table in there.  Immediately seated and we gazed around.  Miss Polly's isn't very big.  But it's got a very Beale Street bluesy hole in the wall feel.  Just the sort of place you might find a hidden treasure of fried goodness.

Photo credit:  Miss Polly's

We were excited.  It was Friday, the inside vibe was good and the outside weather nice.

We decided to split the fried green tomatoes.  They came back 5 to the basket.  Which I always think is odd for appetizers to have an odd number.  I guess perfect for a table of 5?  Cost saving for 5 vs 6?   Eh, neither here nor there. 

Served with a small side of ranch

Y'all.  These 'maters were hard as a hockey puck.  The batter was so thick and hard, I scraped the top of my mouth just chewing it up.

Yikes.  Bad start.  Maybe should have tried the fried pickles?

Tomatoes were soon forgotten though when our food showed up!  And in a timely fashion.  I got a 3 piece dark meat meal.  Before you call me Miss Piggy, in my defense, sometimes thighs and drumsticks can be too small and you don't get enough actual meat...  Oh, whatever.  Call me Miss Piggy!

The food came out and it looked pretty good!

3 piece dark meat, greens, mac & cheese, and jalapeno cornbread

Let's start with the good.  The greens were good, although I wouldn't have complained if their temperature was a bit hotter.  Also, the cornbread was good.  Nothing special, but I do like me some jalapenos in mine.

Now for the bad.  The mac & cheese was cold.  Like, bad, thick, how-long-was-that-thing-sitting-around type of cold.  But the shame, the REAL shame was the fried chicken.  It tasted like it had been under a heat lamp for, oooooh, about 45 years.  I couldn't bite into it, it was so hard.  I had to rip it up with my hands to get to the meat.  And the meat was dry and hard.  Absolutely awful.

The other ladies got the white meat and said it was better.  Although they similar temperature problems with their mashed potatoes being cold.  They said the chicken wasn't the best they'd had and Anita said hers was pretty salty.  But both at least more edible than mine.  

I was very disappointed so I got online to check out their Yelp & UrbanSpoon reviews.  I mean, this place made it onto our list somehow.   And they do appear to have a good overall ranking.  From online, people that loved them raved.  But I saw a lot of complaints that were similar to mine.  I think they have a real problem with letting their food sit around and get cold - or over-heat-lamped - when they don't have enough customers.  So maybe a little after 11am wasn't the best timing on our end.  But still.  That was some BAD chicken.

I'll be sticking to Gus's.  Bless their hearts.