Prince's Hot Chicken just received the 2009 Hoodie Award for best fried chicken. The Hoodie Awards may not be as publicized as the Oscars or the Grammys, but I would rather win a Hoodie than a Toast of Music City award. These awards are given out by none other than Steve Harvey, and they recognize local businesses, religious and community leaders, churches and high schools for their excellence, and contributions to their communities. So basically an awards show for the people, by the people. Other category winners were as follows:
On July 4th team Ulika jumped into a phone booth to become Hot As Cluck Fried Chicken. What was the occasion? Well, it was the Nashville Hot Chicken Festival of course. Here are some pics from our adventure. Congrats to Pollo Sauve for taking home the trophy. They only announced the winner, but we are pretty sure that we finished second (at least in our minds). We had a great time out at East Park and we want to thank the festival origanizers for allowing us to participate and to all of our supporters (you know who you are).
Prince's Vending Crew
Honorary Ulika Members
Trimming the Chicken
Using the Thermapen to make sure the oil is just right
Wet Hand, Dry Hand
If it comes in a dropper you know it's HOT.
Cooking chicken
Adding the finishing touches
Secret Ingredient
Former Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell trying to shigg me
We're headed to the Music City Hot Chicken Festival - follow my tweets for all of the updates and check back here in the next few days for photos and results.
The celebrity judges for the 2009 Hot Chicken festival amateur cooking contests have been announced.
* Mayor Karl Dean, City of Nashville * Lorrie Morgan, Country Music Star * John Dwyer, WKRN/News 2 * Scott Couch, WZTV/Fox 17 * Chris Ferrell, SouthComm CEO & former Metro Council member
I just found out that we made it into the Hot Chicken Festival that takes places on July 4th at East Park. Team Ulika will be competing under the pseudonym Hot As Cluck. As part of the entry process we had to write a piece on why we should be selected to cook at this third annual event. I enlisted my father-in-law to help me write something clever and this is what we submitted:
Our chicken isn’t fried with luck, We make it hot to give it pluck, It’s not just pepper, salt and spices, We’ve left ourselves to our own devices. It really is our local food Battered right here by Nashville dudes, Grandma never fried like this But it’s one style that cannot miss. So let us cook at East-side Park For us this isn’t just some lark We’ll fry it hot and make it steamy But we guarantee you’ll find it dreamy Our chicken isn’t fried with luck, We make it hot to give it pluck Naturally. . . it’s Hot as Cluck
If you are in the area stop by and cheer on our team Hot as Cluck. I also want to give thanks to Andrew J. for helping us come up with the name.
Here is a picture of last year's winner Justin Jones:
Last week, I went to a party that was graciously serving a buffet of Prince's Hot Chicken. There were four 12x20 aluminum pans full of Prince's wonderful, delicious hot chicken wings and each pan contained one of the four heat levels (mild, medium, hot, and extra hot). As a big fan of the hot, I went straight for it. Luckily, I had my pick because most people were starting with the mild or medium.
I have had Prince's lately and the hot didn't seem as hot as it used to be, but this wing had some real kick. After downing that wing and a few Yazoo crushers, I was challenged to a piece of the extra hot. The extra hot had gone virtually untouched all night. Well, I was in just the right...errrr, wrong state of mind to say yes. After the first bite I thought, this is not much hotter than the hot. Unfortunately this line of thinking had me going back for a second piece of extra hot. WOW. It was extremely hot. It had a purplish tint and the spice hit my lips immediately. Each bite was hotter and hotter and so so good. Most people ask me how I can eat that hot chicken. I just have to reply that it is like crack. After one bite you have to go for the next and the next. Also like crack you, will have to pay the consequences in the end. I am glad I can say that I have tried the extra hot, but I think that I will stick to ordering just plain hot next time.
To get everyone in the Christmas spirit, I have decided to bring you some Christmas tunes up until the big day. Now BP is probably more qualified for this series (he has produced three classic Christmas jam CDs), but I will at least give it a shot. The first song in our series is a family favorite, Christmas in Hollis. I have never even been to Hollis Queens, but Run DMC sure makes it sound nice. It's Christmas time in Hollis Queens Mom's cooking chicken and collard greens Rice and stuffing, macaroni and cheese And Santa put gifts under Christmas trees Decorate the house with lights at night Snow's on the ground, snow white so bright In the fireplace is the yule log Beneath the mistle toe as we drink egg nog
While chicken and collards are not standard Christmas fare at my house, I sure wouldn't mind to wake up Christmas morning to the smell of some chicken. Especially if it were some hot chicken. Well, enjoy some Christmas rap and tune in next week for Christmas part two.
From Eric and Katie's Nashville Restaurants blog comes a review of Friday's Hot Chicken Festival. It looks like, despite having more vendors, this year's festival still drew a bigger crowd than it could handle. And though waiting in long lines is annoying, I think we would all agree that it's better to have this problem than to have the problem of not enough people showing up. Hopefully the crowds and long lines will send the message that this festival is something that our city is embracing, and the result will be an even bigger, higher profile event next year.
If you are looking for something to do on July 4th, check out Nashville's Second Annual Hot Chicken Festival. The festival will have hot chicken being served by local hot chicken shacks and will include an amateur hot chicken cooking competition. Next year BP and I plan on entering the contest. We still need a year to perfect our Ulika Hot Chicken.
In north Nashville, off of Dickerson Rd and Ewing Dr, lies a little place called Prince's Hot Chicken Shack. Prince's is just one of Nashville's several hot chicken restaurants, but it is considered by most to be the measuring stick. I never really knew that Nashville was known for their Hot Chicken restaurants, until I saw some national publications that referenced the chicken. Watch this video by the Southern Foodway Alliance for a quick history.
When you enter Prince's, there is nothing fancy about it. There are a about 5-6 white booths decked out with some mismatched table cloths. Just like some of my favorite places (Dreamland BBQ in Tuscaloosa and Buster's in Murfreesboro), there is no printed menu. There is a letter board menu on the wall that outlines your options: breast quarter, leg quarter, half chicken and a whole chicken with a few choices for sides. Then you have to decide on the temperature. For the novice, there is the Plain option, after that you can graduate to the Mild, then if you are feeling pretty good, there is the Medium. For the traditionalist there is the standard Hot, but for the brave and mighty, they will serve it up Very Hot.
I ordered a Hot half chicken with some fries and, most important of all, a bottle of water. The best thing about this chicken is that it is made to order, fried in the most traditional way in a cast iron skillet. You can see in the image below that it is served with several pickles on pieces of white bread. The inclusion of the white bread is a nice touch as this absorbs some of the spices from the chicken and is a great complement.
From the very first bite you can tell that this chicken is serious business. It is not only hot with spice, but also hot with heat.
I only ate half of my half chicken and I took the other half to go. Let me tell you, as this chicken sat for a little while, the heat really started to set in. The second half of the chicken, eaten a few hours later at home, was even hotter.
If you love it hot, and most know that I do, you will love Prince's Hot Chicken.
- UlikaBBQ
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You can call me a wimp all you want, but I'll still take mine "plain." Is that kind of like going to Ruth's Chris and asking for A-1 with your steak? Yeah, kinda, but hear me out. Spiciness has a way of dominating everything else in the equation. When you order your chicken with all of that heat on it, that's pretty much what you're going to taste. But if you strip away the heat, what remains is an absolutely perfectly fried piece of chicken - tender and juicy on the inside, crispy and delicious on the outside. Every bite is bursting with a perfect harmony of fresh and wonderfully complex flavors. Now why would you want to go and cover that up with a bunch of heat? But the bottom line is: if a reputation as the spiciest place in town is what's going to keep Prince's in business, then bring on the heat. This place is one of Nashville's true culinary treasures, whether you like it hot...or not.
Prince's Hot Chicken just received the 2009 Hoodie Award for best fried chicken. The Hoodie Awards may not be as publicized as the Oscars or the Grammys, but I would rather win a Hoodie than a Toast of Music City award. These awards are given out by none other than Steve Harvey, and they recognize local businesses, religious and community leaders, churches and high schools for their excellence, and contributions to their communities. So basically an awards show for the people, by the people. Other category winners were as follows: 
