Fried Green Makeover

As a rule, we steer clear of the ubiquitous grilled chicken sandwich. It bores us to death, and its existence is usually a restaurant’s best effort at appeasing the sort of people who are either utterly indifferent to eating or perpetually dieting—you know, the same folks who always get the salad topped with grilled chicken no matter where they eat. The fact that even a cholesterol-spiking chili parlor like the Hard Times Cafe offers these two options on its menu should indicate the insidious power of this stealth dining constituency. I mean, what's so great about an item that can be found on every Applebee's menu from here to Sacramento?

Chicken sandwich: chicken breast with a few feeble grill marks, wilted lettuce, under-ripe tomato, a bun approaching staleness, and maybe a dollop of mayonnaise, but only if the person ordering it is cavalier enough to forget to demand “No mayo!”

But, as always, there are exceptions.

Once in a blue moon, a very amazing version of a very staid menu item creeps up on us and changes the very foundation upon which we created our pretentious, hard-and-fast opinions on things.

And this time, it's Southside 815's Dixie Chicken Sandwich.

Obviously, the boring components of the sandwich are still there, e.g., the chicken and the bread. But that's it. Lettuce is swapped out for the peppery crunch of watercress, mayonnaise is surrendered for the creaminess and spice of a homemade BBQ ranch dressing, a fresh tomato slice is sidelined for a fried green tomato with a blackened batter coating that’s practically volcanic, and they even manage to throw in some bacon. But we recommend that you nix the bacon. After the fried green tomato and the BBQ ranch dressing, the addition of bacon would just be a vulgar display of power. Although, truth be told, if we both order the sandwich, one of us gets the bacon and we’ll throw a strip or two into the mix just to get a little crazy.

What is most curious about this sandwich is that during the months, even years, of going to Southside and sticking to our favorite Southern specialties (pot roast, chicken fried steak, etc.), we failed to even notice this gem among po-boys and pulled meat platters. It was AC who finally brought the idea to the fore, and we decided, in spite of our abject indifference to the stinky ole grilled chicken sandwich, that this was worth trying. And now it is one of our favorite sandwiches in the Commonwealth. —AK