Buffalos Never Had It So Good
Years ago, before I gave up eating meat, one of the things I did to try to lose weight was install a self-imposed a moratorium on fried foods. Being human, I knew that going totally fried-foodless with a fable and I gave myself three exceptions:
- Tortilla chips
- Tempura in sushi
- Buffalo chicken strips from Cheddar’s
Tortilla chips and tempura were included for obvious reasons, but many people have probably not heard of Cheddar’s, a restaurant chain in the South, and that’s a shame.
Hands down, the Buffalo chicken strips at Cheddar’s are the best in the world. They were so good that I both purposefully excluded them from my dietary restrictions and made my wife drive three hours to the nearest Cheddar’s on more than one Saturday so I could chow down on them. To this day, I still savor the memory of the perfectly fried tender, moist chicken, and the tangy/spicy Buffalo sauce (which is pretty good on other things, like say vegetarian fajitas, French fries or rolls, but that’s another post).
Eating at Cheddar’s is a memory I share with my coworkers every time we drive from Kansas City, MO to Tulsa, OK. Spotting the Cheddar’s sign peaking out from the trees near Joplin off I-44 has become a bit of a game. I hold solemn my duty to inform anyone new on the trip just how good those chicken strips were.
Despite the fact that it’s a ringing encouragement to eat meat, I had always hoped that one day we could go to Cheddar’s on one of these business trips. Still, somehow every time I thought we were going to get to eat there, fate intervened to keep it from happening.
All that changed the last time we went to Tulsa for business. I can actually thank a snow storm that blew in and forced us to stay an extra night for giving us the opportunity. I will admit I was a bit nervous as we drove to the restaurant and it only had a little to do with crazy drivers on the snow. Honestly, a lot can happen to a chain in two years and I figured that the Buffalo sauce I knew and loved so much could have changed dramatically.
Fortunately, Cheddar’s didn’t fail me. The sauce was still amazing and my coworkers admitted that they were some of the best chicken strips in the world. Of course, I pressed them to name any better and got no response, but that’s a different post, too.
The moral of this story is that sometimes the big chain restaurants do get it right and if you ever find yourself in the South, find a Cheddar’s, and order some Buffalo chicken strips or just some Buffalo sauce. You might find that you go out of your way to have it again and again.
