In search of the red golden chicken ticket...

I'm a girl who thrives off of a good food adventure quite frequently in my life.  I'm not afraid to try new things, don't back down very often from a cooking challenge and send me on a search for some obscure product and I will be the one going to 18 different stores or basically the ends of the earth until I find it.  I'm not going to skip making a recipe just because it wants you to "ignite cognac or something else that will have you breaking out in panic-inducing sweats" and I do just as well eating grilled lobsters on the side of the road as I do at some fine "fancy shamcy" dining establishment with Michelin stars.  It's a mix of having a great passion for all things food and drink, a little bit of OCD and a deep streak of competitiveness running through my blood where once I hear about something new and exciting it's inevitable that I'm going to want to be in on the action. 

2 weeks ago in the NY Times Dining Section, Pete Wells wrote an article about a place in Philadelphia called Federal Donut and as soon as I read the piece I knew that we had to go there on our upcoming trip that was fast approaching.  I was enamored about pretty much everything about this place and thought what a genius idea it was to put together doughnuts and fried chicken.  Once I read that people were standing in line for these culinary delights at 7am and there was a ticket system that they cooked up in order to hand out the chicken it  became a non-negotiable that we were going at some point over the weekend so I could see for myself what the hype was all about.  So at 8am on Sunday morning Aaron, Andrew and I arose from our slumbers much earlier then we would have deemed necessary on a ordinary weekend day, threw on the closest matching clothes that would make us presentable in public and headed over to Federal Donut.  I have to say I was ever so slightly disappointed to come across the place with no line or massive crowd of people outside but it was quite cold and as someone pointed out "people in Philadelphia don't make huge efforts to get up early" so I'm wasn't going to complain that I didn't have to wait outside in the windy weather before I had pumped an adequate amount of coffee into my system. 

When you first walk in you will discover that the restaurant isn't very big.  I think there are all of 3 or 4 stools at the counter and then a small waiting area for the doughnuts.  It's very "no muss -no fuss" and what's neat is that you can see the doughnuts being made in front of you by a contraption called the "donut robot".  There are 2 routes you can go with the doughnuts: there are either the hot varieties that are made on the spot and the fancy ones that are made beforehand and are just waiting for you to consume.  Obviously we didn't come this far to have 1 doughnut so we opted for the sample pack instead to have the full maximum experience.  With a fresh cup of coffee we first dove into the hot doughnuts that come rolled in either: appollonia (cocoa powder and orange blossoms with a hint of black pepper), Indian cinnamon or vanilla lavender.  They were light, they were warm and afterwards you literally wanted to lick your fingers of anything left over because the spices were such a great flavor combination that at first you wouldn't expect to be so good but they were the right balance on the piping hot doughnut.  As we were waiting for the doughnuts to be ready we started chatting with some of the workers who informed us that even though there isn't a line around the block they still run out everyday especially of the fancy ones and someone starts making doughnuts between midnight and 4am to have them ready to go when they open at 7am.  From the website there was a little bit of confusion around when the chicken started to come out but we were assured it would be out before the original 5pm call time and from there we knew we would be making an encore appearance for fried chicken.  As for the fancy doughnuts they always have 6 different varieties ranging from pina colada to raspberry balsamic.  After pretty much sampling all of them, they definitely had a lot going on and some were better then others for example the caramel banana was my favorite.  But I have to say I think in my future treks there I would just go straight for the hot ones because there really isn't anything like a warm doughnut in your hands.  I've also learned from experience that the hot ones reheat quite well by giving them a quick 15 second blast in the microwave and it's like they are fresh from the counter all over again.

A 2 hour nap, several doughnuts later and right before we left Philadelphia we figured "why not go back one more time to try this fried chicken that has gotten such rave reviews" and thank God we did because I can truly say that my life is better that I have now ate this chicken.  I would even go as far to say it might just be the best thing that I have ate this year (it's tied right up there with the mushroom bread pudding at Melograno).  Since they now make more chicken to keep up with the demand the tickets didn't come out when we were there but the actual chicken was enough of a prize. The chicken is fried and then topped with different seasoning combinations and it comes in either half or whole portions.  Since this was only a snack we opted to split a half sized order  of  the buttermilk ranch variety amongst the 3 of us which yielded 4 pieces and came along with a small container of Japanese pickles and a warm honey glazed doughnut. The chicken was moist but had a nice crispy coating with just the right amount of seasoning for it to really shine through without taking over the overall taste of the meat and it wasn't greasy at all.  I don't know what they do to the pickles but I could have ate containers of them.  They were a bright green color, sliced thin and with a nice pickled flavor that almost gave them a sweetness edge to them.  The doughnut rounded everything out nicely and was a good play on what a savory doughnut might be...it was like a better piece of cornbread.  The entire experience lived up to all of my expectations and I can't wait to have an opportunity to head back to Philly again soon for another round of fried, fresh delicious-ness!

Here is the link to the NY Times article about Federal Donut so you can become obsessed with the concept as well.  The picture slide show that accompanies the article tells a very good story as well.