Southern Style Chicken Sandwich @ McDonald’s

Hooray! After weeks of longing to try the lunch and dinner counterpart to the delicious Southern Style Chicken Biscuit at McDonald’s…we finally tried the Southern Style Chicken Sandwich, and all I can say is…wow!

Though nowhere near as lip-smackingly good as the breakfast biscuit, this is a truly tasty chicken sandwich for the ages, amigos. Seriously, this shit is delicious, and could that chicken breast be any bigger? Whoa, love to see the juicy-ass chicken that came from!

Anyway, as with the Southern Style breakfast biscuit, the key to this bad boy is simplicity. There is no mayo, no special sauce, hell, there’s not even any lettuce on this thing. Just a pickle, a bun and the best damn fried chicken breast money can buy. Really, that chicken was so juicy you didn’t need mayo. Delicious!

And did I mention the size? I actually thought that our gigantic chicken sandwiches were some kind of anomaly or something, but after carefully scrutinizing the chicken breasts of our fellow diners, I am happy to report that big old chicken breasts are the norm now at McDonald’s. Yeah!

And even though the initial flood of free chicken sandwich coupons have expired — many thanks again to Tevana and Natalie for keeping us so well-supplied with those things! — the legacy of this crazy good Southern Style Chicken marvel is just starting to spread…so, watch your back Chick-fil-A!

UPDATE: Southern Style Chicken Biscuit @ McDonald’s…with honey!

After carefully considering everyone’s advice on the subject, I did finally try improving upon perfection yesterday by adding some honey to my Southern Style Chicken Biscuit @ McDonald’s. And let me tell ya, it was amazing!

Since I wasn’t sure if my local McDonald’s would have honey on hand for the experiment, I brought my own in a tiny plastic container that Christine picked up at The Container Store.

Now, I gotta admit that when Christine bought these little containers a few weeks back, I kinda gave her a hard time about them: “What could we possibly need those for?” Well, now I know what we needed them for…those little guys are the perfect vehicle for transporting my honey to McDonald’s! Yeah! So, I am happy to admit I was totally wrong about your containers, sweetie. Sorry…

Anyway, yesterday morning, while the guys at the register stared and laughed — I try to pretend I’m not a breakfast regular now, but I think they’re on to me — I whipped out my ghetto-ass container of honey and my camera and got to work.

And though it is kind of crazy messy — I had honey everywhere when I left, including the steering wheel of the car and mysteriously, my cell phone! — I gotta tell you, the addition of honey to the mix is pretty damn spectacular! I shit you not, amigos, this is heaven on a biscuit. You gotta try it…

I should also mention that they are now playing cool Stax-style Southern Soul at my McDonald’s in the morning too. Man, they are really selling the Southern experience hard right now…and I, for one, am truly loving it. Yee-haw!

Cracker Barrel & Waffle House

No trip to the Old South would be complete without a stop at one or both of these fine dining establishments. And while native Southerners might scoff at that statement, trust me, to a couple of born and bred Californians, these places are downright exotic!

Cracker Barrel serves heaping, artery-clogging portions of fried, boiled, and mashed Southern staples. It’s not great food by a long shot, but, depending on what you order it can be pretty tasty (the Chicken Fried Chicken pictured below is amazing — the chicken and dumplings, a little less so) and the prices can’t be beat.

Plus, you literally can’t miss the place…we counted almost 20 locations on the drive from Raleigh to Nashville alone. But the real star of Cracker Barrel is the front porch and Old Country Store.

Just the fact that they have a wrap-around front porch at all is cool enough, but when you couple that with the fact that they actually sell the rocking chairs (most start at around $149.99) out there, well, how can you not love this place?

And the porch is just the beginning. Step inside the swinging front doors and you find yourself in a country store straight out of “Little House On The Prairie”.

Loaded with cool vintage candies, jams, toys, Southern spices and seasoning packets, cookbooks and a plethora of John Deere merchandise for the home, this place rocks. And, since they have been a proud sponsor of the Grand Ole Opry since 2004, their collection of Cracker Barrel exclusive CD’s leaves Starbucks decidedly in the dust. So, go for the food, but stay for the store. And no, the rocking chairs do not count as a carry-on item. We tried.

Now, for the pinnacle of our vacation breakfasts, our old standby…Waffle House.

Simple, cheap and delicious, Waffle House is truly heaven-sent. Where else on this planet can you get a single freshly poured waffle for only $2.70! Yeah, you heard me, Denny’s, $2.70! Incredible!

Anyway, I usually order the chocolate chip waffle ($.35 extra, but worth it) with a side of eggs and hashbrowns and Christine gets the pecan waffle with a side of bacon. But everything we’ve ever tried there is fantastic. And that sweet slab of country ham pictured below is like, death-row-inmate-final-meal spectacular! A must try!

And when you go make sure to bring tons of quarters, because aside from the kick-ass breakfast selections, most locations also have a jukebox. And this is no ordinary jukebox, friends, for this one comes equipped with a whopping two rows of songs about Waffle House. Seriously!

This place is so good, people write songs about it! And the music is great. None of the singers are really famous or anything, but the songs are hilarious: “I’ll Take Mine With Hashbrowns”, “Working At The Waffle House”, and our all-time favorite, “Grill Operator” sung to the tune of Sade’s “Smooth Operator”. Trust me, you never heard music like this at McDonalds. True road trip classics!

So, save the fancier, bigger-budget food for dinner and get yourself some Waffle House waffles ASAP. You won’t be disappointed!

On the web front, Cracker Barrel has a pretty cool website with tons of hillbilly stuff for sale and an e-mail newsletter called Front Porch News, which sounds kinda rad.

But if you really wanna experience these places online, check out the Waffle House tunes for yourself at: http://www.wafflehouse.com/musicmachine.asp