Beyond Breakfast With Nick: Mya’s Fried Chicken

The corner of Pacemont and High in Clintonville must have some sort of good energy/karma/luck/ju-ju for food. It was formerly the site of Ray Ray’s Hog Pit, which is easily Columbus’ best BBQ, if not one of its best food trucks. Ray Ray’s moved a little further south to a bigger location, and since late June it’s been the site of a new truck: Mya’s Fried Chicken.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that I know the truck’s owner, Mark Tolentino. Mark has worked in catering for a long time, and recently took the plunge to open his own truck. I’ve always loved Mark’s work, so naturally I’m primed to like his food and want him to succeed.

Fortunately, the steady lines, plentiful media coverage, and regular reports of “We’ve sold out!” indicate that Mark is very much succeeding.

We’ve visited Mya’s multiple times since they started serving. Our first occurred at their grand opening on Saturday, June 30th, which came less than twenty-four hours after the windstorm that toppled trees and knocked out power all across central Ohio, all the while coinciding with a 90+ degree heat wave. On his opening day, Mark demonstrated his commitment to the Clintonville community by giving out meals to area residents without power.

I’ve heard many people say, since Mya’s opened, that they’ve had a hard time finding good fried chicken around town. When I really think of it, I don’t know where to go. Immediately I think of either heading to “Chicken Corner,” the intersection of 5th and Cleveland Avenues where Popeye’s, Church’s, and KFC camp out, or seeing what Kitchen Little is up to, or I think of trekking all the way out to Der Dutchman in Plain City.

I’m sure there are other good local places around Columbus, but Mya’s has become the center of my fried chicken universe. Mark uses a twice-fried technique. The first is a slower shallow fry that cooks the chicken through and darkens the bottom, while the second is a quick fry at a higher temp to crisp up the edges and give it a darker color.

You can order meals of white or dark meat, as half or whole birds, or as boneless sliders. I’ve had and enjoyed all of them. My preference is for the dark meat, and for the sliders.

The chicken can be flavored with one of two sauces: an herbed honey or a pepper and vinegar glaze.

Of course, when it comes to comfort food like BBQ or fried chicken, half the fun is the sides. Mya’s offers creamy coleslaw…

…green beans…

…and mac and cheese made with crumbs from their biscuits. Not pictured here: the smashed potatoes with pan drippings from the chicken. My personal favorite.

Mya’s has now become one of our go-to eats on the weekends. “What do you want for dinner?” “Let’s go to Mya’s.” You’ll be hearing that again and again in our house.

If you want to visit:
Mya’s Fried Chicken
3166 N. High St. (corner of Pacemont & High St., next to the Super Mart) (map it!)
Columbus, OH 43202
(614) 209-9004
Open Fri-Sun, 12-8p (keep an eye on Facebook for exact hours)

The Corral Drive-In | Hermitage, PA

Like it or not, summer is slowly winding down. Kids are going back to school, the weather is (maybe) turning cooler, football is starting, we begin thinking of donuts, apple cider, and all things harvesty. It also marks the time when The Corral closes for the summer. The Corral Drive-In is one of those many decades-old eateries that dot the American landscape. You can find it in western Pennsylvania where Mrs. Breakfast With Nick grew up. The restaurant is open only during the warmer months, so we automatically associate it with summertime ice cream stops or lunch after spending time out on the boat.

My father-in-law used to go here when he was younger, and not much has changed since then. He said that the biggest changes are the occasional repaint, and an enclosure covering the order windows. And that’s about it. The menu features burgers, fries, hot dogs, ice cream, all the favorite roadside eats.

The waiting area consists of old school desks.

The Corral is the definition of roadside: it’s a little shack sitting in a gravel parking lot along Route 18 in western Pennsylvania’s Shenango Valley.

Across the street are corn fields.

Everything is done by hand. Your order is taken by one of the local high school kids working there for the summer.

They figure out tax using one of the tables taped to the counter.

After you pay (cash only), you’ll get your order number. You can wait inside or outside in your car or at one of the picture tables nearby, until they call your name over the tinny, way-too-loud speakers.

The food isn’t fancy at the Corral, but chances are you weren’t looking for fancy. One of their features is the hi-boy, essentially a double-burger with lettuce, onions, ketchup.

You could also order the lo-boy, a single burger, and some fried mushrooms.

Or corn dogs and fries.

This is how you know the fries are good.

One of the draws of the Corral is the coffee stir, which is essentially a coffee milkshake. It’s rich and sweet. Perfect for a caffeine kick on a hot day.

But one of the main reasons people visit the Corral is for the soft serve. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been driving by the Corral and have been detoured by the comment, “Do you want some ice cream?” They serve chocolate, vanilla, and twist, and any experienced Corraler will warn you the portions are obscenely huge. I almost always order a small or a baby size. The photo above compares the large (on the left) to the baby cone (on the right). During the summer, I think it’s nearly impossible to finish a large without it melting away.

But that’s half the fun, isn’t it?

If you’re in the area, the Corral will still be open for while, so you still have a chance to say a good-bye (or two or three) to summer.

If you want to visit:
The Corral Drive-In
2190 N. Hermitage Rd. (map it!)
Hermitage, PA 16148
(724) 962-5392

Beyond Breakfast With Nick: Seafood on the Outer Banks

Our annual Outer Banks vacation means many things for us: time together as a family, getting to play in the waves and sand, catching up on reading, visiting the small towns along the Banks, and eating lots of seafood. As you make the journey to the Banks (and understand that one of the only ways to get there is to enter from the north, taking rural routes through Virginia and North Carolina), you encounter more and more signs boasting local seafood. We stay fairly far south on Hatteras Island, and as we travel down the coast to our destination, one of our first stops is to pick up fresh crab at Daniel’s Crab House. It’s not much more than a small shack on Pamlico Sound, where a tiny crew is steaming, peeling, and packaging fresh crab.

At the tiny counter, which is really just a large box filled with ice and bins of crab, you can catch a glimpse of the crab-peelers at their work. It’s amazing how quickly and smoothly they move.

One of our favorite things to do with the crab is to a make a simple dip out of it: layer of cream cheese, one pound of crab meat, and Grandma’s homemade cocktail sauce. Crackers for scooping. It’s a simple pre-dinner treat, and with a crew like ours, it gets polished off quickly.

Another favorite is shrimp. Many times we’ll get a couple pounds at a seafood store, steam it, and then dunk it in homemade cocktail sauce. In recent years, however, we’ve amped things up by making our own shrimp and grits. Allow me to demonstrate…

First, peel, clean, and de-vein the shrimp, then toss them in a pan. They cook quickly – usually only 30 seconds a side – so keep an eye on them.

Once the shrimp is done, remove it and set aside. While you’re preparing the shrimp, cook some bacon and chop it. Toss it in the pan with shallots, seasoning, and herbs of your choosing.

When the bacon has cooked down, toss in the shrimp, mix it all together, then remove it from heat.

Oh yeah, while you’re doing that, cook up a big pot of grits. Once the grits have cooked thoroughly, we like to stir in some butter and a cup or two of a sharp cheddar (like Dubliner).

Plating is fairly simple: a big dollop of grits, a scoop of the shrimp/shallots/bacon mixture, and then we garnish it with a fresh salsa of tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro. Sometimes we’ll make a small batch of guacamole and put a small gob of that on top, too.

This is a great dish to make for a crowd. All of the ingredients are easy to make in bulk. Your only real limitation is how much shrimp you have and how many you want per dish.

One night, we went all out and made the shrimp and grits plus some fresh tuna. Tuna is one of my favorite types of fish (especially rare), and you can cook it easily. We just sprinkled the steaks with a mix of seasoning and then cooked it in the same pan as the shrimp.

We like it fairly rare (look at the one in the upper left), and we often joke that in order to cook it, you simply wave the tuna over the grill and call it done.

And there you have it. One of the many reasons why we love the Outer Banks. Simply put: good, fresh fish.

Beyond Breakfast With Nick: Quality Seafood | Elizabeth City, NC

Every year, I travel with my wife’s family to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We look forward to the vacation all year long: it involves days of sitting on the beach of a narrow strip of barrier islands. We do a bulk of the driving in one day, but we stay overnight in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, a couple hours away from our destination. That’s usually about twelve hours of driving, including stops, all the way from Columbus through the Virginias and into North Carolina. And at the end of that trip, like a shining, golden promise, a symbol that we’ve arrived on vacation, is Quality Seafood.

When you ask the people at the hotel desk where to get good seafood, they all and always say Quality Seafood. It’s one of those places that looks completely nondescript from the outside. You might ignore it entirely if it wasn’t for the parking lot jammed with cars. Inside is crowded with a diverse mix of locals – and almost only locals, we always feel secretly in-the-know and a little bit out of place. Quality Seafood is about a simple as  you can get: an unchanging menu above the counter, plastic silverware, styrofoam plates, pre-packaged condiments. You could almost mistake it for a generic fast food restaurant… if it wasn’t for the seafood counter in the next room, loaded with fresh-caught goods.

All throughout the twelve-hour drive, we dream and drool over a plate like this. Fries, a dollop of cole slaw, hush puppies, and a pile of fried seafood. Complemented by a big, styrofoam cup of sweet tea.

Sure, you can include some peel-and-eat shrimp steamed with Old Bay.

But what you really want is the fried seafood. I love the the mixed platter: shrimp, scallops, oysters, and the fish of the day. It’s really a superb dish of food. Everything’s breaded and fried just right – not greasy at all. The seasoning is rich without being salty. The seafood is tender and flavorful. If you like seafood at all, this place is a dream. Obviously, we love this place partly because it signifies we’ve arrived on vacation. But even without that, it’s one of those treasures that features the regional specialty and is populated by locals.

If you want to visit:
Quality Seafood
309 E. Ehringhaus St.
Elizabeth City, NC 27909
(252) 335-7648