From left, Big Chicken loads its sandwiches with toppings, Dave’s lives up to the “hot” in its name and Hoots struggles to impress.
In Big Chicken sandwich-speak, M.D.E. stands for “most dominant ever.” It’s also one of Shaquille O’Neal’s nicknames and a fitting title for the NBA Hall of Famer’s classic crispy chicken sandwich with Shaq sauce and pickles. On a mission to see if Big Chicken could live up to the hype generated by the celebrity status of its founder and largest shareholder, we tried almost every sandwich on the menu at the Las Vegas location, including the M.D.E., the mac-and-cheese-topped Charles Barkley, the Nashville hot chicken Uncle Jerome and the Shaq Attack, laden with jalapeno slaw and chipotle barbecue sauce. All were exceptional, with the 5-ounce chicken pieces expertly fried and flavorful to stand out even amid myriad toppings. Pricing, at $7.99 to $8.99, is in line with the premium positioning. Where Big Chicken fell a bit short was in its fry game, as its steak-cut version was on the mushy side and, when used in the Dirty Fries, couldn’t hold up under the cheese, bacon, peppers and ranch. Lucille’s Mac n’ Cheese was a standout, and the boozy milkshakes a fun twist on dessert.
The upshot: A worthy competitor in the latest wave of chicken concepts, Big Chicken has an edge thanks to Shaq and the chef pedigree behind its menu. —L.M.
You’d think two years of COVID would cure me of the face-touching habit, but alas, a visit to Dave’s Hot Chicken in Chicago proved otherwise. We chose the “Medium” spice, which sat in the middle of the heat ladder that tops out at No. 7, “Reaper.” (For that one you need to sign a liability waiver.) After the first bite my lips started burning, and before long so did my eyes, with attempts to dab them with a napkin only making matters worse. Our pre-holiday visit found a festive atmosphere, with a young and mostly male crowd packing the brightly lit space with a concrete floor and colorful murals. The sandwich was the standout in our sandwich-and-slider combo, $13.49 before tax and sides, both with giant pieces of fried chicken but a piquant slaw on the sandwich pulling everything together. The slider was unadorned on a plain piece of white bread, which just looked sad. As for the heartburn, that lasted until 5 a.m.
The upshot: The heat comes on strong at Dave’s Hot Chicken, perhaps a draw for the young set, but the afterburn lasts seemingly forever. —B.E.
“We go to Hooters for the food,” said nobody, ever, except as a joke, which makes spinoff concept Hoots Wings a puzzler. The idea: Take the 11 best-selling food items at Hooters, get rid of the ice-cold beer taps and the big-screen TVs and the women in tiny outfits with orange circles around their breasts, and voila! “Hoots is no breasts, just wings,” as two execs were saying at the IFE show in New York last fall. That prompted this retort: “So, they took the worst part about Hooters and made it into a restaurant?” I was the only in-person customer mid-day in December, but it took the one staffer a surprisingly long 14 minutes to present my bone-in wings order and chicken sandwich with waffle fries, for $18.27. The imaginative selection of rubs and sauces added a bright note, but nothing seemed tempting enough to prompt a return visit.
The upshot: Hoots purports to offer the 11 best-selling items at Hooters, which doesn’t explain the promotion on the napkin holder: Snow crab legs, 1 lb., served with warm butter for $19.99. Wait, people go to Hooters for the crab legs? —B.E.