I love fried chicken. I love mashed potatoes. I love mac and cheese. I love soul food. I love cheap food. And I think I’ve fallen in love with Esther’s, where you can get cheap, delicious soul food.

I had my first visit today to their location that’s off NW 7th Ave and 46th Street (kind of in the hood, I guess). I was blown away with all the choices and it took me forever to finally decide to get the BBQ chicken combo. (I would have gotten fried chicken, but I ate it for lunch yesterday.) Be warned: this location is take out only! There are 4 Esther’s in all and only two of them offer inside dining. They make the food throughout the day, so nothing is made-to-order but you get your food fast!

There are a variety of lunch specials that range in price from $5-11 and all come with 2 sides. I got a 1/4 of BBQ chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy and mac and cheese. The price for this meal was under $6! I also added a corn bread muffin thing for 50 cents extra. 

I don’t know if the pictures capture the whole essence of the meal but seriously, it was really great food and I had a lot left over. The to-go container had to be at least 4 pounds! The chicken was moist and the BBQ sauce had great flavor. The mac and cheese was seasoned perfectly. The mashed potatoes might not be home-made (my boyfriend and I were wondering about that) but they were still good and the gravy had some hickory undertones to it. I kind of liked that everything was mashed together in a to-go box because all of the flavors mixed together to make it a yummy party. Oh, and the corn bread - FANTASTIC!  

I am definitely going to making a return trip because I want to try the fried chicken and oxtail. The hours kind of suck - on weekdays they close at 6pm, on Saturdays they are open until 3pm and they are closed on Sundays. I also wished they had some sort of home-made lemonade or fruit punch to go along with the soul food. They only offer fountain or bottled drinks (boooo). But I think the fact that the food is so cheap but still so tasty evens things out for me.

Recently, my boyfriend and I visited a new BBQ restaurant on US1, Smoke’t. A couple of my friends had eaten there before and raved about the food. As a BBQ lover, I had to see how it was for myself. The menu was a bit overwhelming, I wanted to try EVERYTHING. They also had an impressively large selection of beer. 

We first received some biscuits with butter. The biscuits were really yummy and fluffy. The butter had a hint of maple and tasted perfect on the biscuit. I was pretty excited for my food to come.

I had ordered fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy and a side of baked jalapeño mac and cheese and hush puppies with smoked pepper sauce.

Overall, the food was okay. The fried chicken was good - the batter was light but lacked a certain flavor that left me wanting something more. According to my boyfriend, the mashed potatoes probably weren’t fresh. The mac & cheese was good but nothing outstanding. The hush puppies were really yummy and the sauce was spicy and delicious.

I probably will not be making a second visit to Smoke’t because there was one particular thing that turned me off and honestly, made me pretty mad. I didn’t finish any of the dishes, so I asked the server to pack it all up for me. Once I got home, I realized that not everything was in there! I had about half a serving of the mashed potatoes left on my plate and the server didn’t put any of it in the to-go container. And I also did not get any of the yummy pepper sauce that went with the hush puppies. I was so so disappointed and irritated. Who was the server to assume that I didn’t want the mashed potatoes (which I obviously liked because I ate half of them) nor the sauce?! Who does that?!!!

Ok, maybe I am being a bit harsh and I would be open to another visit because I love BBQ that much. But it won’t be any time soon.