Thursday, March 17, 2011

Delia's Chicken Sausage Stand

It's 70 degrees, sunny and you've got a sausage in one hand and a shake in the other. Can you think of a better way to spend you lunch break? I couldn't, and that's why I headed over to the newly opened Delia's Chicken Sausage Stand in East Atlanta today. I don't usually give a whole lot of background on each place I visit, but essentially Molly from the Porter is one of the owners and was working there today. I'm guessing she partnered up with Delia who mastered the chicken sausage. The space is quite small with only counter space inside and a total of 6 seats with tables outside. The stand has an inspired menu and a terrific concept and I'm hoping they inspire more cheap eats around town (especially in tubed meat form). The business is pretty smart in being open till 4AM and being within a stone's throw from every East Atlanta drinking establishment. Literally you have Graveyard Tavern, The Earl, Eastside Lounge and several others within a very short (2 blocks) walking distance. The sausages are made of Springer Mountain chickens and they try to keep everything as local as possible - spices from south Atlanta and bread from H&F Bakery.
I ordered the Hot Mess, some fries (they call them "wedgies" which just reminds me of Moe's Joey Bag of Nonsense) and a cake shake. They couldn't have named the Hot Mess any better cause that thing was an accident waiting to happen. And sure enough it did - on my first bite, the entire sausage, chilli, and cheese sauce fell right through the bottom of the roll! Luckily, I was leaning over the table and it landed back in the box - could have been a lot worse. I wondered to myself whether or not the bun was actually attached at the bottom but I'm pretty sure it just instantly became saturated and gave way. All in all, the sausage was enjoyable but I have just a few notes to improve upon. The sausage I had tasted more like a hotdog than a sausage. It was just lacking some general oomph I come to crave in a good sausage. I wish it had been a little thicker - go ahead get all your "tee-hee's" out of the way. You'll see, I took two pictures and even after I took a bite, you can't see the link because it lacked the girth (OK, you have my permision to laugh like a school girl at that one).
Ain't nothin' but a Hot Mess
The chili was great as was the H&F bun (which has come to be expected) but the cheese sauce blended a little too seamlessly into the chili and became lost. I think it could stand to be thickened up just a notch so it would stand out more.
I'm sort of a fry and shake nazi, so I'm often disappointed in these two items. The shake however, was surprisingly decent. As soon as I saw them drop the handle on the soft serve machine I cringed (shakes should be made with hard-scooped), but the damn thing actually tasted pretty good. Delia's just threw some chocolate flakes in the ice cream and added a perfect amount of milk so the shake remained thick. The weird thing (although it's not that weird if you consider the name) of the cake shake was that there is like an entire cupcake on the top of the shake.
Between the chocolate flakes and the cupcake, the shake was pretty much impossible to sip through the straw but I ate the thing like cake and ice cream and it really brought me back to the blissful ignorance of being a mindless snot-nosed kid at a friend's birthday party.
The wedgies were kind of just a throwaway side - they were similar to KFC's battered fries and just boring.

I thought Delia's was pretty good considering that it's brand new and they have a local/organic mission. I will definitely come back and try some of their other sausage offerings - the Italian Stallion is talking to me! The price is slightly more expensive than other lunch options, but only by a dollar or two and that's really worth the piece of mind of eating something made locally.

One more small note - They should really ask, "For here or to-go?" at the counter as they give everyone their orders in giant paper bags and boxes which just seems wasteful.

Delia's Chicken Sausage Stand on Urbanspoon
 

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