It’s been a busy couple of weeks at work with many convenient but boring lunches grabbed from Tesco or M&S. So, on Tuesday, a few of us sat down to a lunchtime takeaway in the form of fried chicken from 9 Cut Fried Chicken.
From the founders of popular chicken gaff, Yard & Coop, they’ve a colourful serving hatch situated on Great Marlborough St. – and also serve inside Dog Bowl on Whitworth St. West. I ordered via Deliveroo and had it delivered to work – with a £5-off code that they have running throughout November. Fried chicken is another of my favourite go-to takeaways, so I was really excited to review 9 Cut Fried Chicken.
Hot Honey Bucket – 9 Cut Fried Chicken
As well as a selection of chicken buckets with accompanying sauce on the menu, there’s also burgers, topped fries, and a selection of sides to get your lips around. We went for a standard bucket of chicken and chips with a hot honey hot sauce for dipping or pouring. Whichever your persuasion, the first thing I want to tell you is just how delicious the sauce is. Addictively good! And everyone that ate made a point of saying so. I’m not usually one for gravy or sauce with fried chicken – I know, bland – but I couldn’t stop dipping. Then pouring the sauce all over my chips. So sweet and sticky, mildly spicy, and simply moreish. A match made in heaven and I’m not sure fried chicken will ever be the same without it.
Enough about that, you want to know how the chicken was. AMIRITE?
They take a whole chicken and cut it into 9 pieces, coat each piece, and then fry until crispy and golden brown. When the order arrived, the chicken glistened under the office light. Be still my beating heart. Taking my first bite, I’m delighted with just how tender and juicy the meat is underneath the crispy coating. When I say juicy, I’m talking sweet, autumn apple juicy. There wasn’t a part that I ate that was dry.
Hot Honey Bucket – 9 Cut Fried Chicken
There’s plenty on the bone and it’s everything you wish your local chicken shop would be in terms of quality. The coating is as crispy as you’d expect, but lacks in seasoning and makes me wonder if they use as many secret herbs and spices as the famous Colonel. That’s not to say it isn’t good, it’s just didn’t have as much of that salty, savoury, spiced flavour I really enjoy.
The chicken is large and so are the pieces. Along with the chips, there was enough for three of us and we still had leftovers. The pieces are a little on the greasy side and so the heaviness didn’t take long to fill us up.
Chicken Lickin’ or Nah…
Overall, we were all very satisfied and I predictably wanted to take a nap afterwards. The meal didn’t blow me away as I was hoping for – I’m always excited to try somewhere new and Manchester is fortunate enough to have some of the best food traders – but I did enjoy it and will go back to try other things on their menu. If not that, just for the hot honey hot sauce! It was a little lunchtime treat and the smell alone attracted curiosity from others in the office.
My final word on this meal: make sure you’ve got some napkins to hand because things will get messy.
Check out our SocialMuse page for more reviews of Manchester’s local hot spots, such as Lazy Tony’s Lasagneria in Ancoats.
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