While chicken and waffles are just about the most confusingly delicious combination of food. But there hasn’t been a lot of innovation in that dish for very long. Well, at least not until Bruxie came along, offering waffles as sandwiches. There are a number of options within the chicken category and plenty outside of it as well. I opted for what seemed to be their newest creation: Nashville Hot Chicken.

Admittedly, I had never had Nashville Hot Chicken before. And admittedly, having ordered without the pickles and cole slaw, there wasn’t much left in the waffle except for some sort of mayo-based sauce and the spicy chicken. I also ordered the waffle fries because they seemed necessary.

Conceptually, I loved the sandwich. The waffle was just a hint sweet, which was all you could really want for a sandwich like this. The chicken, though, was nice and juicy, but lacking in flavor. I don’t know if this means I am not a fan of Nashville Hot Chicken or just not a fan of Buxie’s version of it. Either way, I was left wish I had ordered the Buffalo Chicken instead. And with that disappointment came the desire to go back soon. Like very soon.

Oh, and the waffle fries were good, but I mean aren’t they always.

So, like I said, while I wouldn’t go back for the hot chicken, I would happily return to Bruxie any day.

While “the bun” has undergone many iterations (pretzel, brioche, etc…) and sandwich bread is known for its varieties, there is one bread-like breakfast conduit that still hasn’t really seen much glory as far as being put to alternate uses. It is the waffle, but Bru’s Wiffle in Santa Monica is out to change that. You see, Bru’s thinks that waffles need more of the limelight and they are willing to give it. At Bru’s, you can get a pizza waffle, taco waffles and even “sliders” with waffle buns. Of course, Bru’s offers waffles in their sweet breakfast form, but the savory offerings were really what drew me to Bru’s.

Yet, as I gazed at the savory section of the menu, I found myself wishing for more. Sure, the revolution begins with a single act, but there is an entire area of their menu dedicated to burgers, paninis (yes I know panini itself is plural) and sandwiches. Wouldn’t it be amazing if these were all available with waffles instead of bread or buns? That’s what I was hoping for, and I was sad to see that wasn’t the case, so I made my way back to the savory section and picked out a meal. Despite the interesting choices, Dwight’s Special Chicken & Waffle really stood out to me. I know I can get chicken and waffles at other places, but I felt this was a good way to gauge Bru’s.

The waitress told me that “Dwight’s Special” didn’t mean there were any frilly wasteful vegetables and I was safe (in not so many words). I was given the option of white or dark meat, and chose the white, thinking I didn’t want to deal with bones. She also asked if I was cool with all the condiments (ranch, gravy, Louisiana hot sauce and syrup). They all sounded great to me, then to top it all off I ordered their chili cheese waffle fries to make it an even bigger waffle experience. The waitress was surprised such fries still existed on the menu and was under the impression they no longer made them, but would find out for us. It turned out they would sometimes make them specially, and I happened to be special that day.

But before getting to the meal, there was a bit of a wait. I blamed the custom fries on this, but was happy when everything arrived. On top of a large Belgian waffle sat two huge, fried chicken breasts waiting to be motorboated between my teeth. I started with a bite of the chicken and waffle without condiments and found them both to my liking, then proceeded to drop ranch, hot sauce and syrup upon my meal. At that point I realized I was lacking in gravy and asked the waitress for some. She happily obliged and I dug even further into my meal. First off, the fried chicken recipe was awesome. While the breading was good, it was not too heavy in taste or stomach-feel. I also loved that Bru’s did not shy away from making a sweet, flavorful waffle (supposedly with Madagascar vanilla). As such, the waffle wasn’t just some waffle-shaped bread but a truly essential part of the meal.

As for the waffle fries, they were sliced thin and at times were more like chips than actual fries. This made for an interesting, if not totally delicious experience. You see, these fries kind of buckled and sogged under the chili and cheese pressure, where typical waffle fries probably would have stood stronger. The chili and cheese were good, and I certainly applaud the effort to bring a different type of waffle into the fold, but sticking with old-fashioned waffle fries probably would have been better for the cause.

Nonetheless, I am ready to go back to Bru’s Wiffle. Many things on the menu made my mouth water, especially not that Bru’s passed the chicken and waffles test. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll even be able to convince the place to sub out a bun or bread for waffles on one of those burgers or sandwiches. A guy can dream, right?

For some brunch before my annual photo shoot with my grandparents, we headed to Zoe’s House of Pancakes in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Zoe’s didn’t exist before I moved out west, so going here wasn’t exactly a trip down memory lane, but I was glad to see a new business doing pretty well. Even on a Monday for brunch, they had a pretty good number of people, so I assumed they would have some pretty great food. I took a look at the menu and found some of the most inspiring breakfast food I’ve seen in a long time, with everything hovering around the $5 price range. They had tons of different pancake varieties, including one enticing option called the Fruit Explosion. Despite pancakes being the namesake of the place, my eyes drifted to the waffles section.

Two waffles specifically caught my eye. One was the Bacon Waffle, which was a Belgian waffle cooked with homemade bacon bits. For some reason, that didn’t seem meaty enough for me. Instead, I found they had Chicken and Waffle. I didn’t know this dish existed north of the Mason-Dixon Line (ok, that might be a lie because I had it in San Francisco), and here I was about as north as you can get without being in Canada, ready to order some Chicken and Waffle. My grandparents looked at me in disgust, but I ordered and eagerly awaited Michigan’s version of Chicken and Waffle.

When my food came out, it looked great. Resting upon one big Belgian waffle, was a heaping deep-fried breast of chicken. I spread a little butter over the breast and waffle, then poured on a comfortable dose of syrup. The result was beautiful looking, but it had to stand up to the taste test. And it did. The Belgian waffle on its own was really good. The batter was fluffy, crispy, and had just the right amount of sweet. The fried chicken tasted good too. Although the batter it was fried in was pretty generic, it had a good amount of saltiness to counter the sweetness of the syrup and waffle. It was also boneless, which is a big improvement upon Roscoe’s bone-in chicken. I understand that bones add flavor, but when you’re dumping syrup on chicken, I don’t really think the flavor is noticeable. Plus, no one wants to waste time picking bones out of a breakfast.

So to sum it all up, Zoe’s made a pretty tasty Chicken and Waffle. The waffle would have been great just on its own and while the chicken wasn’t some Southern-fried family secret, it did a pretty good job at making my unvegan stomach happy.

In desperate need of brunch and a beer in San Francisco, I headed to Liverpool Lil’s, a nice little pub with that serves more than just your average pub food. A lot of their offerings looked pretty good, but the one that stood out most to me was one of their daily specials, Chicken and Waffles. I have always been intrigued by the concept of chicken and waffles. I feel like for most foods, you can’t really credit one specific person. In my mind, most were developed through the ages by a group of people, a village or a town. But chicken and waffles, on the other hand, had to be one lone genius who decided this bizarre mix would produce a beloved dish.

Regardless of how the dish was born, I was just happy with the knowledge of their existence and looked forward to trying it for myself. It arrived at my table with a glorious mix of gravy and syrup. The chicken was fried with a nice spicy kick and the huge buttermilk waffle did a great job of sucking down the virtual cornucopia of flavors. The dish was so huge that I was happy to share it with everyone at my table, and even then I had to struggle to eat the last few bites. I washed it down with my hefeweizen and took a few moments to reflect upon what I had just eaten. Not even in their wildest dreams could my ancestors have imagined that their descendant would some day eat such a meal.

For my first chicken and waffles, I was pretty impressed. It’s definitely a dish I’d like to get in the future, but I’d like to test out some different places to see the wide variety of chicken and waffles the world has to offer.