One of our greatest frustrations about Kansas has been finding good food. We expected - living in America's heartland - that we would have access to ample fresh foods. No such luck - almost all of our food comes from the grocery store, where is it trucked in from who knows where. (We are still holding out hope that we'll be able to find some farmer's markets this summer...and maybe plant a small garden of our own. There's also been mention of a community garden, but I haven't been able to find out any details yet.)
We also desperately miss good restaurants! We know we were spoiled living on the east coast near so many big cities and shouldn't expect to have the same access here.....but sometimes it is hard (and I really miss Thai food. And have learned, after multiple failed attempts, that I absolutely cannot cook edible Thai food myself.) Regardless, we have found a few restaurant gems after much trial and error.
Now one thing that Kansas is supposed to be known for is fried chicken. After doing a little research and getting advice from locals, it seems that the best restaurants around here are ones that serve fried chicken. We decided to take a short road trip to test out one such place - The Chicken House.
We also desperately miss good restaurants! We know we were spoiled living on the east coast near so many big cities and shouldn't expect to have the same access here.....but sometimes it is hard (and I really miss Thai food. And have learned, after multiple failed attempts, that I absolutely cannot cook edible Thai food myself.) Regardless, we have found a few restaurant gems after much trial and error.
Now one thing that Kansas is supposed to be known for is fried chicken. After doing a little research and getting advice from locals, it seems that the best restaurants around here are ones that serve fried chicken. We decided to take a short road trip to test out one such place - The Chicken House.
(Picture borrowed from this website.)
So we headed 2 hours south to the town of Olpe, KS - population 504.
The Chicken House is certainly not a pretentious place; but it's also not an expensive place, which means that we could afford to eat lunch out. On the inside it looks like an old diner. And I don't mean "old" in a cool, trendy, retro way - just old. Old in a - everything (walls, wallpaper, pictures, signs, tables, chairs, coffee cups, ceiling) has aged to the same shade of yellow - kind of way. This did not deter our enthusiasm. We drove two hours for this food.
After looking over the menu, we had both decided to get the 1/4 chicken meal, which included a salad, bread, potato and coffee for $6.00. I ordered first and asked for a baked potato with my meal. Our rather gruff waitress responded with a curt, "No." I was fairly confused, since she gave me no explanation. I think she finally became exasperated with my confusion and mumbling and decided to explain that the baked potatoes were baked at noon, and it now being 3, the potatoes would no longer be any good. I quickly settled for hash browns.
Once we got our food, we understood why this place is known for its fried chicken. Yum! Although, we both noticed that our hash browns were actually the old baked potatoes cut up into pieces. hmmm. We didn't get bread either; maybe it was too old as well. But honestly, there was so much fried chicken, we could hardly eat anything else. I don't think we will be returning, but all in all, it was a good day - and a treat to spend time together.
