I haven't blogged for a while: partly because I've been swamped in work and partly because I haven't really found anything worth blogging about. Until now that is. The establishment in question is
Chicky's, a burger delivery place competing with the likes of
Simply Burgers,
Burgering House etc. Only thing is, there is no competition. Chicky's wins hands down without even breaking a sweat! On size, on quality and on value!
First time I came across Chicky's was a while back on
Onemans Blog, as a side note to another burger place I was looking into. I made a note of it; a ToDo if you like, and that was as far as it went. To be honest, its sixty's diner décor put me off a bit, and the photos of towering burgers seemed too good to be true. A month later I get an e-mail from a burger loving friend about this place, same blog, telling me we should try it.I thought to my self, 'same blog?... not too much media coverage out there... how good can it be?', and that's as far as that went. Until, that is, by some perverse twist of fate, that friend of mine and I happened to be hungry on the same day, at the same time, and craving the same kind of food! Ok, I was going for drama there, it's actually not uncommon for that to occur: we're always hungry, and any time is burger time, the twist however was that my friend called me to suggest trying the new burger item on the
New York Sandwiches menu.
Long story short, on the way there I remembered that Chicky's was close by so suggested trying that. My friend went one step further by raising the question 'Why can't we do both?'. A valid point, and so we did. Problem was we got carried away at NYS and ordered two burgers and two sandwiches between us. By the time we were done, we were more stuffed than a turkey on Thanksgiving! But, that wasn't going to stop us! We promptly made our way to Chicky's, telling ourselves that the walk was going help us work up an appetite. (On a small side note, after the NYS meal, my opinion of the place hasn't changed a bit since I
first went: nice but well overpriced!)
We soon arrived at Chicky's and started going through the menu. First impressions, not really the sort of place you'd go out to eat. Effort has clearly been made on the décor but it doesn't really have that warm inviting 'sit here' feel. The fact that there was nobody else eating in didn't really help that anyway. We went though the
menu and decided on chicken (given the name of the place). I went for the Spicy Louisianna and I believe my friend went for the Chicky's Classic. We went to the counter, ordered and waited. Not long after, the food arrived.
The Décor
The Menu
Towering above the counter, monuments of glorious burgers
Oh my god! Now, baring in mind that I was stuffed, the burger went down like it was custom made to navigate effortlessly through my mouth and down my oesophagus! Not to say that it was small - because it wasn't - but eating it was easy sailing. After a few bites I was left wondering why this was. I had to put some conscious thought into it. Like riding a bike: it's easy to do so you don't really think about what you are doing, but try to become conscious of your unconscious and you realise that you're making tens or hundreds of tiny adjustments in order to keep the bike balanced.
I first slowed down my chewing. That's when I realised that every bite I could feel the crunch of the chicken crust. Then I looked into the burger. It was clear why it went down so easily: thick hearty slice of tomato, similarly the onion: as if to make a bold statement. The condiments were part of the burger, they were put there to make a difference, not just something to claim is in there and for which to charge more. The tomato added the juicy lubrication that made swallowing so easy. The same with the onion coupled with a pleasant 'crunch'. And then I looked at the chicken: juices oozing out of it, screaming, 'I've been cooked to perfection and not a second longer'.
My friend concurred and we made a point to say that we have to come again when we are actually hungry and try more stuff. To that end, we went back to the menu to ponder what we'll be trying next time we visit. Clearly we had to try the beef burgers, but two more things stood out. One was a couple of their burgers that used
Texas toast. If not for novelty value alone that had to be tried (and when it was tried, novelty value wasn't the only thing we got!). The other interesting thing was the
chicken wings. The interest was twofold. On the one hand the they offer a choice from ten different sauces to go with the wings. More interesting however was their choice of how many you could get. Six, twelve, twenty, thirty, fifty or one hundred! One hundred wings! I was drooling just thinking about a mountain of chicken wings in front of me. Of course they would have to be served in one container (which has not been confirmed yet), but just imagine!
This was all about a month ago and since then I've been again and again and verified the delicious goodness of the beef burgers too. In particular I tried the western burger (onion straws: amazing!), and the mushroom burger (I could sooo taste the mushrooms: they were as if I'd made sautéed them myself - the real thing - none of that canned crap I've had one too many times before). So why has it taken me one month to spill the beans on this place? Because just last night I went there again, but this time I had my camera with me!
Texas Burger
Texas Chicken
Chicken Burger
Popcorn Chicken
Twenty wings with Hot Sauce
And where, you say, can I find these babies? Well, if you live in the centre of Athens and are lucky enough to be close by (unfortunately I'm not) you can get them delivered from the
Ilissia store (210 7772463), but if you're keen on going there as I did so that you can have everything straight off the grill, here's the map.
View Chicky's in a larger map
There's also a
Pireus store that only does take out and delivery in case you live round there (210 4125119).
Related Links:
Chicky.gr
Chickys.com.gr
@Facebook
@Oneman
@Foursquare
@Athensmenu.gr
@FoodSpotting
