piecedgoods

We started off with the intention of checking a few more things off the Fat Tuesday 7×7 List of 100 Things to Eat and Drink before you Die, but truth be told, it was a half hearted effort. We were missing two of our party today due to various summer related shenanigans, and we’d been questioning the list making criteria. In fact, we’d been discussing creating our own 100 things list based on our own  rules (which still remain to be determined).

Fried chicken from Foreign Cinema was on the list and off we went to get some. Turns out that Foreign Cinema is closed for lunch except for special occasions and for brunches on weekends.  Who knew?  Well anyway, not us, because we hadn’t done our homework.

We now all had a hankering for fried chicken because we are the kind of people that want what we cannot get. Out came the iPhone.  I searched for “Best Fried Chicken SF” and got Hard Knoxs Cafe in Dogpatch as the first thing on the list.   We threw the Big Eat 100 Things list to the wind for this Tuesday and went looking for Hard Knox.

Hard Knox Cafe doesn’t advertise its fried chicken in the front.   But most people that come here order it.  The decor consists of unpretentious neon beer signs and metal bars in the front and corrugated metal and road signs combined with other memorabilia.

The fried chicken is GOOD. Juicy and tender on the inside, crispy, flavorful, and not greasy on the outside. A plate of fried chicken is $11 and comes with three pieces of chicken,  two sides of your choice, plus two corn muffins. We tried both the fried chicken and the smothered chicken.  And as sides tried the collard greens, cabbage, mashed potatoes with gravy, macaroni and cheese, and yams.  Between the three of us, our favorite sides were cabbage and yams, but the rest were good too.  We were thumbs up on the whole experience.

The clientele are working folk – guys with safety vests, hard hats and steel-toed boots eat lunch here, some staring at the sports scores on the TV above the bar, and others in groups.

One location is never enough us Fat Tuesday gals, so we stopped by Mr.and Mrs. Miscellaneous across the street  from Hard Knox to pick up some peanut brittle.

We engaged in a conversation with Mr. Miscellaneous (his real name is Ian Flores) about infusing basil into ice cream flavoring (Note to self: try cold infusion), and learned that ice cream scoops best at about 10 degrees though should be stored below freezing.

No wonder my homemade ice cream is rock hard when it comes out of the freezer.

Then we drove off to Axis Cafe, at the bottom of Potrero Hill, to check out their patio seating and their hip warehouse restaurant/event space.  

We shared some ice cream there – white pistachio, strawberry and mexican chocolate – okay, not great from my point of view.  We should’ve had the ice cream at Mr and Mrs Miscellaneous.

But we sipped ice teas in the sunshine and enjoyed the afternoon, the patio, and each other’s company.