Columbus, OH

Hot Chicken Takeover & Bake Me Happy

Last week a great thing happened in Columbus. For as long as I can remember I've been told about how good Hot Chicken Takeover is; which is really helpful when you can't eat it and love fried chicken (see previous post). Well, finally I was going to have a chance to try it! I'd just like to quickly preface the rest of the post with the fact that years ago when I did eat fried chicken, I ate it very rarely, but of course you can wait for a London bus for years and then five will come at once. So, this will be my second fried chicken post in as many weeks - my apologies!

So, as I said Hot Chicken has a great reputation. It's "Nashville-style fried chicken & soul food" and people eat it until it's (literally) gone everyday at the North Market in downtown Columbus, so I've always been curious. Well, miracles happen and who knew that they were teaming up with my favourite Columbus GF bakery Bake Me Happy (big ol' post about them to come soon) to bring a one-off pop-up shop of dreams to us less fortunate folk! What a time! 

I enlisted my good friend Varuun (you probably know him, he knows everyone) to head down with me and we got there a little early as I was expecting it to get busy (which it did - there was a line round the block for the next three hours). We ordered our food and sat down to eat! 

   

I went for the "Hot" on the heat scale as I felt I should try the namesake and it was spicyyyy - it even got my nose running! The chicken itself was crispy, a little oily, but extremely flavourful and was served with a GF white cheddar biscuit (which for my UK readers is a scone). I pretty much finished the whole lot, which was an achievement as it was giant! [I also brought my own ketchup because I'm crazy and found out before I went that they only serve Ranch with their food (which I do not like) and the chicken with the ketchup was DELICIOUS.] The mac & cheese was ok, but I think it had been cooked a bit too long. GF pasta tends to get a bit gummy in texture if overcooked and it was verging on this. I'm not a huge mac & cheese fan anyway (sorry America), so I probably should have got double coleslaw instead - I'll remember that for (the hopeful) next time. I actually ended up buying two portions, but after finishing my food I was a bit over eating fried food, so I gifted it to my friend. I did however eat most of a BMH cream cloud cookie for afters. Which is finnneeee.

More than anything this event has really showed Columbus the need for more GF food outside of the normal cupcakes and cookies and just how many GF people there are to feed. It was a hugely successful event and if they do it again, I know I'll be first in line, as should you be. Well done Bake Me Happy & Hot Chicken Takeover!

I'll be joining Caleb on tour next week, so if you have any suggestions for Texas or Florida, give me a comment below!

Ps. Go to Bake Me Happy and eat a King Dong. You won't regret it.