A group of my friends from college have been doing surprise birthday get togethers for the past few years. It’s gotten to a point where it’s not much of a surprise anymore, but we still do it anyway. In early January, we went to Sweet Chick in the Lower East Side for a birthday celebration, and the birthday boy ended up being the first to arrive for his surprise brunch. Oops.
Sweet Chick specializes in Southern comfort foods and is famous for their chicken and waffles. They do a nice job of balancing rustic and modern, and their space has a fun, cool vibe. Bonus: they have vegetarian fried chicken for non-meat eaters like myself. P.S. Sweet Chick has a secret menu — just ask your server! It’s not available for weekend brunch though.
Sweet Chick has a number of interesting sounding cocktails for $12 each, but I opted for the Coney Island hard root beer. Tastes just like root beer with a hint of booze. It gets significantly more boozey as you get to the bottom of the can.
McKinney, our birthday boy, got the smoked pork hash ($15), which looked disappointingly small, but turned out to be a tasty and very filling dish. It’s house cured pork with Carolina style rub and topped with a poached egg.
Ken got the steak and eggs ($16). Two fried eggs, medium steak, steak sauce, home fries. Classic brunch stuff. He seemed pretty happy with this dish.
Angela got the regular fried chicken and waffles ($17), while I got the vegetarian fried chicken and waffles, which had much larger pieces of chicken. During dinner hours, you can choose from six different types of waffles. For weekend brunch, it’s just the classic Belgian waffle.
I wouldn’t normally think to order waffles of any sort, but I was very happy with these. The vegetarian fried chicken is the best meatless fried chicken I’ve had in NYC. Top notch high quality faux meat, juicy, tender, stringy. Perfect balance of savory and sweet. I’m happy to announce that I lost my chicken and waffles virginity at Sweet Chick!
2 Comments
Jess
atYum! Looks good! I’ve only tried and been to the Sweet Chick location in Williamsburg. The LES location is on my to visit list.
wazwu
atI think the menu is the same at both locations though, so you’re not missing out on much!