A hot time at Bolton’s

When you walk into Bolton’s Spicy Chicken and Fish you have a decision (or a “decession”) to make. What is the true meaning of “hot?”

King Daddy and I eat a lot of spicy food and the definition of what’s spicy changes from place to place. We go full on at our favorite Indian restaurant. We go halfway at our favorite Thai joint. But when it comes to Nashville Hot Chicken, hot takes on a whole new dimension.

No matter where you find it in Nashville, Hot Chicken starts at really really hot and marches forward up to “call an ambulance.”

I am a fan of Bolton’s. First, let’s just look at the menu.

If you know what you’re doing, you don’t need a fancy menu. You don’t need grammar. You don’t need numbers that match. Or letters that match. Or even letters at all. If you can’t figure out this menu you just need to leave. You’re not a Bolton’s person.

Sometimes you don’t even need your debit card because sometimes the computer is down and they only take cash. In that case, you place your order, hike down to the Mapco, pay extra to use the ATM machine and come back to pay.

And you don’t mind. Because you can now anticipate the shatteringly crispy, moist and juicy, and deliriously spicy chicken that is to come. Actually, you can anticipate this for quite some time because Bolton’s fries everything to order.

While you are waiting, it is good to amass a case of napkins because this is going to be messy. Pro tip: Use the paper towels from the restroom that occupies approximately three square feet of the restaurant. They’re more absorbent.

This is it! Fried chicken nesting on absorbent paper that covers the sides, in this case Bolton’s spectacular greens and baked beans. This meal is a three-trip meal — three trips to the tiny lavatory to blow my nose.

King Daddy was stronger. He just sat there as beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. Real men don’t blow their nose until they just can’t stand it anymore.

By the way, we ordered “mild.” The guy behind us ordered “hot.” Clearly, he’d never been here before. Sucker.


Save

Save

One Comment

  1. Dee Thompson
    May 6, 2017 at 3:06 pm

    There used to be a place in a tiny town on the way to Florida called Sweat’s Barbeque. The first time we ate there, when I was a kid, we wondered why it was called Sweat’s. When we added the sauce to out que we found out why.

Leave a Reply

Your message*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Name*
Email*
Url

What is 8 + 14 ?
Please leave these two fields as-is:
IMPORTANT! To be able to proceed, you need to solve the following simple math (so we know that you are a human) :-)