Lo-Lo's Chicken and Waffles

 
There are all types of choices when choosing a restaurant.  You might be looking for an adventure or something spicy.  And then there are times you just need something from your momma's kitchen.  When we think of home cooking, we always think of comfort foods.  There are no greater comfort foods than those you find in the Southern United States.  So the place we chose for this week is called "Lo-Lo's Chicken and Waffles".  This is a family owned business that takes great pride in their food.  Such pride that many of the entree's after family include names of people known to Lo-Lo.  (Lo-Lo is also known as Larry White by the way.)  They have two locations in the valley and we opted to try the newer one in south Scottsdale.
We arrived at the restaurant a little after 5pm and the place seemed to be at least three quarters full already.  We had a waiter come to our table and ask about drinks.  Besides Pepsi products they have many flavors of Kool-Aid on tap.  I decided on lemonade while Patti went with her usual water with lemon.  Drinks are served not in an ordinary glass but in a large quart mason jar.  This is an excellent way to have enough to drink, I didn't need to worry about my glass becoming empty.  But that really wasn't a problem because any worker that walked by your table would ask if you needed something, would ask how your food was or what else they could do for you.  The service is amazing and if that is their policy I think it makes for a good business model.

The first thing on the menu that caught our eye was something called "Stupid Fries".  These are hot seasoned fries topped with tender fried white meat chicken, gravy & onions, green & red bell peppers and smothered with cheese.  I took one bite of these fries and the thought that came to my head was "I wanna slap mah momma fo not serving these to me before".  The reason I think they call them "Stupid Fries" is that you would be stupid not to order them.  So to describe these start with a french fries and cheese combination, which by themselves are good.  Then you throw on the pieces of southern fried chicken and a splash gravy that then gives it a southern comfort food taste.  It is then topped with red and green bell peppers and onions for added color and a sweet flavor.

You don't go to a restaurant with "chicken and waffles" in the name and not order "chicken and waffles" so Patti did.  This is the "Lo-Lo's" entree and it consists of 3 pieces of chicken prepared southern style, with 2 golden waffles just like the name says.  The chicken comes lightly seasoned and fried but not greasy.  Depending on the piece of meat you eat, determines how juicy it was.  We found that the leg and thigh dark meat was very juicy but the white meat was a little dry.  Some people would say that waffles are just waffle but you could tell these waffles had a little extra love put into them.  There was a hint of cinnamon throughout that gave it a unique flavor.  This is not your Eggo brand or IHOP waffle for sure.

I went for the "Chicken fried chicken".  This is a filet of boneless chicken breast double dipped, fried, and smothered in a creamy sausage gravy then served with grits, potato salad and cornbread.  The chicken was nice and crispy outside with tender juicy meat on the inside.  The sausage gravy on top gave an extra salty southern flavor.  This entree definitely reminded me and made me miss the southern cooking I had in Georgia.  Patti hasn't had much experience with southern cooking or soul food.  I wanted to have her try some fried okra but they didn't have any available.  So of course my next choice was grits.  The grits were served in a small bowl with a healthy portion of butter on top.  For those who have not experienced grits before, the best way I could describe it would be similar to malt-o-meal.  When you hear the word "grits" you might associate it with "gritty" and expect a similar texture.  These are far from it as they were smooth and creamy.  There is very little flavor in grits so the butter adds some to it, I recommend adding a touch of sugar to balance out the salty taste.  One side that I was really impressed with was their potato salad.  Their potato salad is very similar to my own homemade recipe, that may be why I was particularly fond of it.  The potato salad had an excellent balance of egg matched with mustard, a smooth mayo with fresh ingredients.  This is not your typical restaurant, mass produced potato salad.  You could definitely how freshly made it was.  To top the meal off you are given a large warm piece of corn bread.

Half-way through our meal, we were starting to feel the carb overload.  We asked for a couple of to-go boxes and our waiter asked if that meant that we didn't save room for dessert.  Despite being full, we were curious what kind of desserts they had.  We were tempted by and gave into the Banana Puddin'.  This consists of homemade banana pudding, fresh bananas, Nilla wafers and topped with a mountain of whipped cream and served in a mason jar.  Remember we were already full by the time we got our dessert.  We thought we would only take one or two bites and have to bring the rest home.  Well that one and two bites turned into four and five and pretty soon our mason jar was completely empty.  This is truly THE best banana pudding I have ever had.

I really enjoyed this restaurant because they obviously take pride in their service as well as pride in their food.  So if you haven't tried chicken and waffles, try it now.