South City Fried Chicken: the Best of Americana
(Gerry Furth-Sides, photos courtesy South City Fried Chicken except noted). We love everything about the phenomenally talented and hospitable team at Preux & Proper, so we were eager to try sibling South City Fried Chicken, an easy walk of a block or so apart on Spring Street DTLA.
The FOOD HALL has a daunting name (think the chaotic, gentrified Central Market) but is actually an inviting, just-right size double storefront space with soaring, open ceilings and a variety of ethnic food performance kitchens.
Community-minded, a discount is offered to all first-responders who walk in the big, open wide door.
Fried chicken seems to be the current “darling” of food these days. It is also one of the five most popular foods in the world. So, along with just about everyone else, I love fried chicken. And it is the one thing I really know how to cook, learned from my passionate European cook mom. Legendary dancer Paula Kelly, in fact, claimed it was “the best-fried chicken I ever ate” when I served it in the Beverly Hills Hilton green room one year at the Jimmy Awards.
Chef Sammy Monsour in the kitchen
Fried chicken in all its forms continues to be one of Americans’ top five favorite dishes, and served for summer holidays, Sunday dinner or.. anytime. Coleslaw and potato salad, with biscuits just out of the oven, are classic side dishes.
South City Fried Chicken Sandwich
Asians have their own version, called a Crispy fried chicken, a standard dish in the Cantonese cuisine of southern China and Hong Kong. The white meat of a chicken is fried so that the skin is extremely crunchy, but the white meat is relatively tender. Pepper salt, and prawn crackers, fried separately, are served with it. The dish is eaten at night and served at weddings.
Korean fried chicken or seasoned chicken is eaten as fast food, snack food or bar food served with pickled radishes, beer, and soju. Small chickens are fried whole then cut up. With larger American chickens, only wings and drumsticks are used. Fat is removed from the skin so that the coating fries up as crackly-thin and then seasoned. For details, please see Duff Goldman’s website, which also shares his way to fry chicken perfectly: //www.ergochef.com/blog/history-of-fried-chicken-spotlight-on-chef-duff-goldman/
Daisy – Cheery and ready to answer all questions about South City Fried chicken sandwiches
The Austro-Hungarian version my mom taught me starts by removing the skin, then replacing it with a flour, seasoned breadcrumb and egg wash coating before frying. Using Asian panko made of rice flour adds a new crunchy twist. We loved it at home, served with homemade French Fries and coleslaw. That is until my mom read an article listing the demerits of fried food. I must say that her seasoned, baked chicken and (horizontally), potatoes were a surprisingly fantastic substitute.
Here, the short but sweet South City Fried Chicken menu was created after owner/operator Joshua Kopel and Executive Chef-partner, Sammy spent a year on the road “getting in touch with their roots and cultivating the essence of Southern cuisine.”
Charismatic Chef Sammy, a third-generation chef who grew up in his father’s kitchen in Chapel Hill, NC. Monsour’s food reflects his classical training at the CIA, his Lebanese ancestry, and his Southern roots. The sandwiches reflect this goal.
Chef-partner, Sammy Monsour. (Gerry Furth-Sides photo)
“Southern Scratch Cooking” defines the South City Fried Chicken kitchen, and the Fried Chicken sandwiches, “from dill pickles to the collard green kimchi,” explains Chef-partner, Sammy Monsour. //www.southcityfriedchicken.com
The first part of the menu is made up of Chapel Hill; Greenville; Birmingham and New Orleans. The second half entitled, “Let’s Spice Things Up” is thoughtfully listed from “hot” to “hottest”! The Miami features jerk spice, the Austin layers Javi’s tia’s hot sauce into the chicken
The South City Fried Chicken CHAPEL HILL, NC Sandwich
The South City Fried Chicken GREENVILLE, SC:
Bo serves up the “Greenville” of house-smoked chicken bacon,
South City Fried Chicken sandwiches combine just about every side dish, seasoning, and spice known to this dish. Each one honors the tradition and ingredients representative of specific “city in the south”.
BIRMINGHAM, AL: Alabama white, hickory smoked onions, horseradish chimichurri, Tillamook cheddar ($12.99)
The Birmingham, AL sandwich
LOUISVILLE, KY: pepper jelly, bourbon barrel aged green hot, poblano butter ($11.99)
City Fried Chicken The Louisville
The NEW ORLEANS, LA creole remoulade, cajun spice, Thai basil, fried egg, collard green kimchi, Comprised of Cajun spice straight from Emeril Lagasse’s recipe book, so revered by Chef Sammy that at age 13 he spent hours standing in line to have his book signed and shake the iconic Chef’s hand.
The New Orleans Sandwich
The Austin, TX: Rojo bean hummus, burrata, Javi’s tia’s hot sauce, pickled radish, cilantro, blue corn tortilla crumble, heirloom tomato ($13.99)
The South City Fried Chicken AUSTIN, TX sandwich
The Nashville, TN: Nashville hothouse pickles, cookout slaw choose I hot/xxx / reaper ($11.99)
The Nashville, TN at South City Fried Chicken
And for dessert, a “DoleWhip soft serve — it looks small but it is just the right fish!
South City Fried Chicken, DTLA, 724 South Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90014, 213-278-0008. Hours: 12-9 daily.
Gerry Furth-Sides 
Barbara Hansen 
Chef-owner Alain Cohen 
Roberta Deen 
Jose Martinez 
Nivedita Basu 