Saying Goodbye With Fried Food
Empanada Boy and I moved out of our Harlem apartment last week. It was our crazy sublessor and our tiny apartment, not the neighborhood we were eager to leave. In fact, we’ve enjoyed many things about getting to know Harlem. We were grateful to be there to witness history as Barack Obama was elected president. As we packed up to leave and emptied our refrigerator, we were also grateful for the excuse to eat some tasty fried food.
Fried food was on the menu for both of our last two nights in Harlem. We tried to go back to Charles’s Southern Style Kitchen, but it was disturbingly closed on a Thursday night. We hoped it was just a sign that Charles was hard at work getting his new buffet ready. Instead, we walked down Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. to Sam’s Fish Market. Sam’s is a small storefront with a walk-up counter where a single fry-cook (Sam, perhaps?) plunges pieces of whiting, porgies, catfish, shrimp and clams into the oily depths. On the recommendation of two old timers who came in before us, we tried the whiting (no bones!). EB got it with a thick slice of white bread, and I got it with French fries. After waiting patiently for Sam to prepare them, we carried our cardboard baskets back to our somewhat dismantled apartment. We doused the fried wedges with Louisiana hot sauce. The fish was moist, but the crust was too salty and didn’t have the lightness and crunch I was craving. It was, sadly, no replacement for Charles’s.
We spent our last night rearranging the furniture, scrubbing things clean and removing the last of our possessions from the apartment. It was after 10 pm by the time we were ready to drive out to Uncle Second Breakfast’s house in Brooklyn. On the way, we decided to stop off at a place that advertised the Southern traditional pairing of chicken and waffles. Little did we know, that place was Wells’s Famous Home of Chicken and Waffles. Wells has been around since 1938, although the original location closed down. It’s still run by Ms. Wells, and it’s credited with bringing fried chicken and waffles to New York.
EB ordered a fried leg quarter and a waffle. It came with Wells’s homemade strawberry butter, which looked a bit disgusting to me. The waffle was way too sweet for my taste, but the fried chicken was tasty. The crust was crisp and crumbly, and the dark meat melted in my mouth. Ms. Wells and friends know how to make fried chicken, but the crust still wasn’t quite as light, and the meat wasn’t quite as flavorful as Charles’s. In addition to the requisite fried chicken, I tried sides of candied yams and okra and corn. The yams were sugary and had too much cinnamon. (The traditional sweetness of soul food is obviously not always to my taste.) But I loved the corn and okra, which blended mellow and tart flavors into a delicious savory sauté. My dish came with an excellent homemade corn muffin made with coarse cornmeal. EB stole a big chunk of it, much to my chagrin. When we had cleaned our styrofoam plates, we said goodbye to Ms. Wells and headed out of Harlem. The restaurants of Washington Heights await our stomachs and this page!
Sam’s Fish Market
2528 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd.
New York, NY 10039
212.283.5162
Wells’s Famous Home of Chicken and Waffles
2453 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd.
New York, NY 10030
212.939.9622
Living in a relatively ungentrified part of Harlem has some drawbacks for food lovers. There are no bagels, no espresso bars, no wine stores and almost no sit-down restaurants. But, as Empanada Boy and I found, living here can also have its culinary advantages. These are particularly evident if you live, as we do, within a quick trot of 
Charles’ specialty is the fried chicken (pictured above), which he reportedly cooks in massive cast iron skillets. He seasons the pieces for at least 8 hours, dips them in egg and fries them in soybean oil. The result is some of the lightest, crunchiest fried skin I’ve ever tasted. This delightful shell gives way to moist, flavorful meat that is difficult to stop eating, despite the ever encroaching state of fullness. Just ask EB. He finished his chicken, sweet potatoes and collard greens and then had to go home to lie down. I ordered the barbecue chicken and was entranced by the sweet, slightly spicy sauce coating the tender, smoky meat. Collard greens were salty and rich with ham hock flavor. Similarly seasoned black-eyed peas exploded in my mouth like morsels of candy. I took some of my chicken and sides home for EB’s lunch, and I was still full. Mango Mama’s barbecue pork ribs were falling off the bone and coated in the same sauce. 
The heavenly fried chicken at Charles’ invited comparison with 
As I promised last week, I’m here to fill you in on some of the other meals I enjoyed on the cheap (relatively speaking) while I was in New York. For the sake of order, I’ll begin at the beginning.
The next day, after feasting at Otto, Daddy Salmon’s cousin Maple Syrup offered to lead the way to 
Next came Daddy Salmon’s party. It was a blast and excellent food was had by all. My grandma, Rice Pudding, was one of the guests of honor. She stayed in Long Island (or the ‘Guyland as my cousin Ketchup likes to call it) at my aunt and uncle’s house, so we took the train back out the next day to see them. They live in Plainview, which is undoubtedly a nice place to live but leaves something to be desired in terms of entertainment. It’s nice to see my cousins, but the thing I most anticipate about the area where they live is eating bagels from 
Legend among Bagel Boss fanatics like my cousins Black Cherry Soda and Bagel with Lox (who used to eat very little else) is that the bagels here are so good because of the mineral content in the Long Island water Somehow I have a hard time buying that, but these are among the best— if not the best— of any bagels I’ve ever tasted. They have just the right density and the perfect tooth-feel. Other wonderful things about Bagel Boss include: top-notch bialys, great spreads and fish salads, a 100 percent kosher kitchen and excellent black and white cookies. Best of all— it’s open 24 hours a day! Relatives or no relatives, this is reason enough to come to Plainview (or neighboring Hicksville, to be exact).
I love my Long Island relatives, and I love Bagel Boss, but two days in the ‘Guyland exhausts most of the great culinary and cultural opportunities. The next day it was back to New York for a trip to the MoMA before flying to Chicago. Before viewing the awesome Richard Serra sculpture show, Mango Mama, Flava Flav and I joined Uncle Second Breakfast and my cousin Momotaro for lunch at 
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