Fried Chicken
Looking for some expert recommendations. I need to find a place between Whitehouse and Hackettstown where I can pick up some great fried chicken.
My better half is having a birthday tomorrow and they really want fried chicken for dinner. I won't have time to make any so I am looking for a place to stop on the way home from Whitehouse.
If the Golden Skillet was still around I would have stopped there. And we're not fans of KFC so I know my options are really limited.
Does anyone have a good recommendation for take out fried chicken.
Thanks for any help...
halloweenguy Do you need to get it tonight? If not I would order it tomorrow by 10 am from Weis for pick up. Weis's FC is excellent. That's the only place we get our FC from for any occasion. Tried Shop Rites once and threw it out.
auntiel 
Nosila If Celestines Catering Company has its food truck in front of Warren County Liquors tomorrow on Rt57 Washington, grab some tasty fried chicken. She also has sides like collard greens, potato salad and corn bread. Google them or Like them on FB to find out where they will be.
Mansfield mama Bishops on 22 in Whitehouse has excellent fried chicken. You can buy it in the hot foods section in the back of the store in 8 or 12 pieces. Very good!
Denise Gordon 
GC Love Celestine's! Best Southern comfort food truck around for sure!
Here's the link to their FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/Celestines-Catering-Company-441406505933842/?fref=ts
Calico696 
iphone-imal Thanks for that link Calico! I'll have to check it out sometime when I'm headed that way. Some of the best fried chicken for my money was the "Chicken Shack" where I used to live in NC and the Chicken place in Paterson next to the Passaic River & across the street from the R&S Strauss where I worked.
By the way, it would be super to find a place that rolled their chicken in gluten-free corn meal, rather than wheat flour, etc. before frying!
Phil D. 
skippy Weis? Shoprite? ROFL Obviously some of you have never had REALLY GOOD fried chicken.... weis & shoprite AIN'T IT.... (and Golden Skillet was pretty good, but not knock-yer-socks-off)....
Frankly, I can't remember the last time I had awesome fried chicken. It certainly wasn't from anywhere around here....
JeffersonRepub Celestine's .. Some of the best fried chicken I have had and I lived in the south for a while!
Nature Lover Lol. I can't speak to the Mansfield Shop Rite but the one in Greenwich makes chicken that is ten times better than anything from the Greasy Skillet. They also have an excellent sushi chef, of all things.
Blackcat Best fried chicken I've ever had is from Chicken Supreme in Paterson but that's obviously not close. Shoprite isn't bad if it's just made. The problem is that it sits covered under a heat lamp so it gets soggy.
Golden Skillet was terrible. They, along with KFC, used a pressure cooker that forces the oil into the meat to expedite cooking. At the wrong temp it will come out greasy. I cooked fried chicken everyday for years at a mom and pop place in Keyport. We used the same style pressure cookers. The one time I went into GS, I could hear the same pressure sputter of the fryer.
For a quick fix, I'll get it from Popeyes in the mall. It's better than KFC because it's vat fried. I have no clue about the mom and pops in the area. It's an item I eat 2x a year.
emaxxman 
tidyThanks Everyone!! All great ideas!! I'll let you know which one I wind up with.
Have a great night!
We had Celestine's at Spring Fest. The cornbread was amazing. Chicken was tasty too. Mac and cheese was mushy but had good flavor.
Tracy (mobile) BTW, my husband makes the best fried chicken I have ever had. Unfortunately for you, he's not retail. LOL
He just said to me the other day that he hasn't made fried chicken in a long time. I said.....no kidding!
Anyway, he is a huge fan of Celestine's.
Disclaimer: My death row meal would be fried chicken. ;-)
Urban Chicken in Montclair....call ahead and they will have it ready to go for you.
SS2cats "How is Montclair even remotely between Whitehouse and Hackettstown?"
In the alphabet. LOL
I make it myself. Use Tyler Florence's recipe. Comes out great.
Best FC I've had in the area is at 90 Acres in Gladstone. They used to have FC night, but now they have it all the time. Really juicy and crispy.
MeisterNJ If anyone ever gets down Alpha way... the guys who owned The Bagelsmith and Alpha Liquors bought the old Kunuku Dive Shop and combined their two businesses into a one-stop shopper's paradise.
They renamed it Bagelsmith Grille and Liquors and they also added a Krispy Krunchy Chicken franchise operation to it... that chicken is like crack, you keep wanting more.
Well, Alpha is closest thing we have in the area to the South, so I would expect good Fried Chicken....
Hahaha. Blairstown actually isn't all that hick nowadays. And if you really want redneck, head to Sussextucky.
Speaking of Blairstown ( and chicken), there is a new chicken place I'm hearing good things about: Damn Good Chicken. I checked out their FB page, and have yet to visit but plan on soon.
lola 
04lm I had lunch yesterday at Celenstines Food Truck in Washington which was in the parking lot of Warren County Liquors. The Picnic Table was in the lawn with grass a foot high......I did not sit there.
It was about 1pm and I was the only customer at the time. I had the Fried Chicken Combo with a Side of Mac/Cheese and Collard Greens along with a Bottled Water all for $10.50
The 2 pcs of Fried Chicken .....Thigh and Drumstick were very good but a bit salty for me. Small portion of Mac/Cheese was very good/small portion of Collard Greens had chunks of tender Ham Hock in it which was good....I added some Hot sauce to it.
I enjoyed the food and would stop again ... If you want just Chicken it is $2.00 per piece of chicken which is similar to KFC or other places.
Honeydew I passed by Warren County Liquor earlier today. The bad news is, Celestine's wasn't there. The good news is, they mowed the grass. :-)
I noticed they will be in the lot at Warren County Liquors in Washington boro all day today. I really need to try their fried chicken after all the rave reviews here!!
Per their FB page:
"We will be at 260 West Washington Ave. today serving from 11am until 6pm. We are bringing back the pulled pork this week after selling out on Thursday of last week. We will have a fresh fruit salad this week as well. We are also serving our usual Southern favorites (Fried Chicken, Baked Mac & Cheese, Collard Greens, Potato Salad, and Cornbread). We have our Gourmet BBQ Burger(our recipe) and our Chicken/Bacon Medallions add a bite size choice as well. It's going to be a hot one today, so stay cool, enjoy the weather, and let us do the cooking for you!"
Vic 
fujixt1 Made some last night. So good. I used drumsticks and thighs because breasts never seem to cook all the way through for me or they come out burnt.
I also made fresh buttermilk biscuits, topped them with ham and pimiento cheese, and put them in the toaster for a few minutes. Side of 'slaw. So good.
Did you make your own pimiento cheese too? It's pretty easy and so much better than the stuff you get in the plastic tubs at the supermarket.
Agreed,
I usually do, but not this time. Wife had bought a tub so i figured I'd use it.
Recipe I use when I do:
Bacon cooked and diced
scallions
mayo
hot sauce
lemon juice
diced pimentos
S/P
It's great stuffed in chicken, browning the chicken in the leftover bacon fat.
You're forgetting something important, MNJ... where's the cheese? I use a combination of cream cheese, extra-sharp cheddar and pepper jack. Mmmm... my mouth is watering just thinking about it. I think I've decided on what I'm bringing to the pot-luck BBQ on Sunday, lol.
Flynns on the hill in Phillipsburg. Has the best fried chicken I've ever had. Amazing!!
Nj 55 Oh, had typed sharp cheddar and wrote over it. My bad. You get the idea. Cream cheese is a very nice addition.....
Make some biscuits to pair with it..... Nothing better than a fresh buttermilk biscuit.
I picked up an 8pc fried chicken from Shop Rite in Succasunna. It was terrible! So dried out and the coating was way too hard to chew. The two tiny wings shouldn't even have counted as pieces. They were even more inedible than the rest.
What a shame. I was looking forward to chicken that "rocks"!! ;)
SueR A co-worker brought some Hometown chicken to work. No complaints, everyone was quite pleased. The breading was yummy, large pieces, not greasy, juicy and cooked all the way thru. They are not organized yet, so I will give them a couple of weeks and definitely go back.
Yeah auntiel, I know you (or someone like you lol) posted that on the other thread. It sounds very good but I really don't travel out that way.
Celestine's is hosting a Mardi Gras party in Washington! Sounds like a must attend event for me.
Joni Moore Celestine's ditching the food truck and is opening an actual restaurant in the former Hometown Fried Chicken space in Washington. The grand opening is tomorrow 8/11. Yum, yum, yum....
I looked up their website but there is only a menu for catering so are they only a storefront for the catering or will they be selling their food daily to walk-ins, dast food style?
I really hope so-- sounds delicious!!
NotForNuttin' We went to Celestine's for dinner this weekend. I had the two piece fried chicken with potato salad, mac and cheese and cornbread. My husband had the bacon wrapped chicken medallions with potato salad and mac and cheese. Everything was delicious and the place was spotlessly clean. Worth the trip to Washington.
Calico,
I agree with you that the food is very good. But I think it is on the expensive side. The 10 piece family pack of fried chicken was over $30.00 and the sides were small and no breasts. All wings, one thigh.
I will give them another shot after they have been open for a few months. That will give them a chance to work out the bugs.
Overall I had a nice experience there. It is nice to see a family run a business with such pride.
'Have actually found Weiss' fried chicken to be unbelievably delicious for supermarket chicken, if you like extra, extra crispy. Did get a very salty piece other night though. Have had Shop Rite, Walmart, KFC & like theirs best. And their Rotisserie Chicken is the best, too (better than Costco).
For the record, I am not a fast foodie, I grew up with & still eat well balanced fresh, home-cooked meals of all ethnicities, just happen to be worst cook in my family, lol!!
Do have to get over to Celestine's. From what I'm hearing, Bet worth the money-- expensive ingredients, cooking materials, overhead, employees. SPECIALTY!!
Does anyone know a place that makes "Gluten free" fried chicken? I mean in the South years ago, I've had something close, where the chicken was coated in a mix of wheat flour and corn flour/meal.
I've also had it from a place that could have made it gluten free, as they used only corn flour/meal to coat their chicken, but they shared a fryer with "Chicken Fried Steak", etc. which was coated in wheat flour and used the same counterspace, etc.
I can buy gluten free chicken strips premade and rotisserie chicken is the only "fresh made" essentially gluten free chicken I've seen, but I wanted to know if anyone has seen a place that does gluten-free fried chiken, especially with corn-flavored crust. It's different from what you might expect and is quite good. At least what I remember from my youth was. I do miss a perfect chicken biscuit though too, but getting that gluten free is pretty much sacrilege. Can't match that taste!
Phil, not quite fried chicken but TOPO has really good gluten free chicken tenders. They use a corn meal coating on it.
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