Michael E.
Yelp
Nashville style hot chicken is definitely the hot trend right now (no pun intended). You can't turn on the television without seeing a commercial for Dave's Hot Chicken. Despite this, and although I'm a tremendous buffalo chicken fan, the idea of spicy chicken without the vinegar flavor wasn't appealing to me. Because of this I've driven past Birdies Hot Chicken for the last two years without going in. What a mistake. Recently, my intended lunch destination in the area was closed, so I threw caution to the wind and tried Birdies. It's now one of my favorite places. The menu is limited to hot chicken, fries, soft drinks and milkshakes, so it's best to know that going in. The restaurant is very clean, and each table has a bottle of honey and napkins (which you will need). I get the impression that the bulk of their business is take-out though. Regardless of if you're eating in or taking out, the food is served in the same disposable containers, with plastic utensils. This didn't really bother me. It's just something I observed. The chicken comes in six degrees of heat: Light Mild, Mild, Medium, Hedium (sic), Hot and SOS, which range from 4,000 Scoville units to 2.2 million Scoville units (which is a measurement of spice level on the palate). I don't know if their Scoville claims are accurate, but to put it in perspective for the uninitiated, Tabasco Sauce is 3,750 Scoville units (I Googled it). I definitely like spice and heat, but I also didn't want my lunch to kill me, so I decided to try the Medium, which supposedly measures 75,000 Scoville units. That still seemed scary to me, but when the old lady in front of me in line ordered the Hot, I was embarrassed to ask for the Mild. As it turns out, Medium was just the prefect amount of heat and spice. Enough heat to make your nose run, but not so much that you couldn't taste the flavor of the spices. They offer the chicken three ways, as a sandwich, tenders, or as a topping to their Signature Fries, which is what I ordered. The Signature Fries comes with a generous amount of their hot chicken which is chopped into chunks and served on top of their seasoned fries and drizzled with their "Birdies' special sauce". It also comes with a crispy dill pickle chips and a scoop of creamy coleslaw, which is a welcome, cooling accompaniment. At a very reasonable $11, the Signature Fries is a lot of food and could probably feed two people. I of course ate it all. The honey on the table, which is also available in packets for take-out, added a pleasant sweetness to spice and heat, which I really liked. The staff is very friendly and seemed eager to please. One thing to note is that the food is made to order, so there is a bit of a wait. It's not a very long wait, but it's also not fast food quick. It is worth the wait though. I absolutely recommend you try Birdies. Maybe you'll be braver than me and try the SOS heat level. I imagine there are worse ways to shuffle off the mortal coil than eating spicy chicken.