So far, Inglewood has treated me quite nicely, but after a couple days down there I turned to Google for food suggestions. It is probably my least favorite way of finding new restaurants, as the top results are typically the restaurants with the best SEO instead of the best food. Nonetheless, I needed help for lunch and this led me to Dulan’s Soul Food Kitchen, a stone’s throw from court and with promising reviews.

The place was pretty full when I arrived and I found most seats in the restaurant taken by a good mix of people. Quickly, my eyes spotted Dulan (yeah, he has a picture of himself on the menu) and then they spotted the fried chicken lunch special for $8.99. This came with two pieces of chicken, two sides and two cornbread muffins. To test both dark and white, I got a breast and a wing, then picked mac and cheese and mashed potatoes as my sides. In true soul food fashion, each of my orders were plucked out of buffet-style troughs and dropped into a sectional styrofoam box. I paid up and took my eatings outside to enjoy.

First, I took a dive into the mac and cheese. This was truly some of the cheesiest mac I have ever experienced and although I never thought I would say this, it was almost too cheesy. Yes, the parts where there was perfect balance between cheese and mac were delicious, but there really wasn’t much balance and I found myself trying to seek it out too much. I didn’t like putting so much effort into my mac, but truly I would rather complain about too much cheese than too much mac. Besides, the portion was pretty huge and while some cheese remained at the end, I was certainly full.

Next, I tried out the mashed potatoes. For some reason I just wanted those sides first. These guys were flooded with gravy and the gravy itself was quite tasty. The problem was that these mashed potatoes were in no need of extra liquids because they were nearly in liquid form themselves. Rather than a mash, these were essentially a puree of potatoes. A well-seasoned and salted puree, mind you, but there was little texture to fight against the gravy.

Then, of course, I tackled the fried chicken. For some reason, I consider this the ultimate test of a soul food place and Dulan’s did not fail. It didn’t exactly blow me away, either, but I was not disappointed. Both the breast and wing were tender, juicy and flavorful. That was the chicken at least. The batter, though, was pretty run-of-the-mill. This is not a bad thing necessarily, because consistency is good, but I wouldn’t make a special trip to Dulan’s for their fried chicken with the knowledge that I could get something just as good or better elsewhere.

The corn muffins, though, were a completely different story. I ate them as my dessert and what a dessert they were! Corn muffins and corn bread have a nasty habit of being dry and crumbling, but these guys were perfectly moist and expertly sweetened. And you know that whole issue people have with muffin bottoms being inferior to muffin tops? Not a problem at Dulan’s. Through and through, each bite was as good as the last and tasted like corn heaven.

So Dulan’s (while having a Hell of a deal for lunch) wasn’t exactly amazing. Here and there I saw some good room for improvement, but maybe I am the only one that feels that way. Since Dulan has been slinging soul food since 1975 and has a second Soul Food Kitchen (also in Inglewood), he is clearly doing a lot right. Or maybe everyone keeps going back for the corn muffins…I know I would.

A couple of weeks ago, Squidink tossed out a list of the 9 Best Macaroni and Cheese Dishes in LA. Naturally, my mouth was watering profusely as I read through and saw the gooey, holy cheesus. And, while they all looked awesome, there was only one that I felt the need to eat immediately. This was Chef Marilyn’s Soul Food Express, which resides in that fascinating part of west LA on Pico and La Brea.

Chef Marilyn’s is truly an express restaurant, packing a whole lot of food into a 10×10 storefront with no seats or tables whatsoever. The food is out buffet-style and while a couple sauces had a film formed on top, I knew this was not going to be a bad thing. In this tiny space, Chef Marilyn’s offered a massive variety of soul food and as one whose only soul cred is having an afro throughout college, I found it hard to decide. Surely, I wanted the mac and cheese. The fried chicken breast was a no-brainer. But I knew this alone would not satisfy me after a humbling tennis loss to my arch-nemesis, Joel, who I also happened to be eating with. On a whim, I opted for a smothered chicken thigh and watched as the guy behind the counter dropped everything into a sectional styrofoam to-go box. I paid up my 8ish bucks and headed back to Joel’s to dine.

First, I had to try the mac and cheese and It unquestionably lived up to its reputation. To be fair, it would probably be more appropriate to call this cheese and mac, because it was loaded with that wonderful substance even a vegan has a hard time giving up. This stuff was all at once thick and creamy, with that nice variety of cheese texture you sometimes get when your mac and cheese is scooped out of a much larger vat. They had loaded a new batch in right before we ordered, but it still had that texture that I sometimes dream of.

Next up was the fried chicken, which was also awesome. I would have liked if the breading was a little more crisp, but the flavor and juiciness of the chicken was unbeatable. Finally, there was the smothered chicken. In truth, I had no idea what I was getting into when I ordered the chicken, other than knowing I’ve never had anything bad that has been described as “smothered.” Fortunately, this trend didn’t change with the smothered chicken. The smother itself was a sort of delicious gravy with a pretty good onion and juicy chicken flavor.

Needless to say, Chef Marilyn’s was a huge hit to my taste buds and stomach. In fact, eating it after tennis was so great that I may even make a tradition of it. because we all know nothing goes together better than tennis and soul.

Over and over again, a friend of mine has told me that I just have to go to Sky’s Gourmet Tacos. Considering I live so close, it took me a long time to finally make it there, but when I did I was expecting something pretty special. Before fusion taco truck became the coolest thing in LA, Sky’s was already serving up their own kind of fusion. In their case, the fusion is Mexican “with a splash of soul.” Since I’m a big fan of soul food, Mexican food and general food creativity, I was sure I would love Sky’s.

The interior of the place has under a dozen tables and little counter to order at. Above the counter is a menu with all of their offerings. I decided to start with their namesake and ordered a steak taco. This was made with lettuce, tomato, cilantro, Sky’s Sassy Sauce and cheese. I ordered mine without the lettuce and tomato, then looked into getting a quesadilla. They are called “Our Deluxe Quesadillas” and didn’t list any of the ingredients, which I figured was cool since I’ve rarely seen a quesadilla that consists of anything more than cheese and whatever meat I choose. In this case I chose chicken.

After a surprising 10 minute wait, the food arrived and looked nothing short of delicious. The taco was veggie-less and the quesadilla was uniquely prepared in that there was meat and cheese just stacked on top of the double tortilla. First I dove into the taco, which was quite good. The meat was nice and juicy and it’s always good to have cheese on tacos even if it isn’t the authentic way. Sky’s Sassy Sauce was an interesting sort of salsa unlike any I’d ever had before. Rather than being sweet or spicy, it was actually somewhat sour and vinegar-y. It wasn’t bad, but wasn’t what I expected. Nonetheless, it worked well with the taco and made me hunger for the quesadilla.

With meat and cheese on top, it was a little tough to dig into the quesadilla, but I managed to find myself one of the sections and pulled it off. And what I found almost made me cry. This was a quesadilla that had gone too far, because inside I found tomato, shredded lettuce and tons of sour cream. Mixed into that was a little bit of cheese and cilantro, but it was essentially inedible. Look, if you want to be creative with your food, I am all for it, but you need some sort of disclaimer when you take something as simple as a quesadilla and turn it into a veggie-filled monstrosity. Part of it is my fault for not asking, but I have to put a lot of blame on Sky’s for taking something simple and putting too much of a twist on it. The one bonus part was that at least there was cheese and meat outside of the tortilla and I didn’t have to dig through veggies to find little morsels of edibility.

As for the chicken itself, it definitely had soul and tasted pretty good. Unfortunately I had to consume it outside of the quesadilla and I think I missed out on whatever unique blend the fusion was supposed to offer.

So in the end I was disappointed. The taco was great, but it was only great because I had known what ingredients were inside. The quesadilla, however, made Sky’s Gourmet Tacos a very unvegan unfriendly restaurant.

Combining Asian Food and Soul Food is kind of an interesting concept, and in doing so the Asian Soul Kitchen truck was born in LA. I decided to follow them on Twitter because their twitter name of “itsbentobaby” sounded pretty awesome to me. I found them on Abbot Kinney and took a look at their menu. Although some of their specific Asian foods like yakisoba looked good, I needed something with a lot more meat to it. To get that fix, I turned to their Lollipop Chicken.

This chicken was fried drumsticks covered in a tamarind glaze. The tamarind glaze was really what added the Asian touch to this chicken. It also came with a choice of white, brown or black rice, which isn’t exactly the norm for fried chicken. Nonetheless, I decided to go with black rice. When my chicken was ready, it came in a nice little box, which definitely elicited thoughts of bento. Inside, there were three decent-sized drumsticks and a wad of rice.

The chicken tasted pretty good, and the sauce was also nice. It’s hard to mess up fried chicken, but it’s also hard to make it special, so while this was pretty good, it didn’t change the way I think of fried chicken or make me always want to eat it with tamarind. Oh well. The price was also a bit steep. $5 is not a lot of money, but it is a lot for 3 drumsticks, especially when they tack on sales tax on top of that.

Asian Soul Kitchen was pretty good for a visit, but the Lollipop Chicken wasn’t great enough to make me desire more.

I’d been waiting for a very long time to finally make my trip to Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles. It took the right combination of alcohol and lack of sleep from the night before to finally propel me to the location in Mid City.

My buddy and I walked in around noon and there was a short wait before we took our seats. The menu was loaded with so many varieties of chicken and waffles, without a vegetable to be found, that I really couldn’t figure out what to order. I decided to wait until the waitress arrived to make sure I ordered the right thing. Unfortunately, service wasn’t exactly the strong suit of Roscoe’s. I didn’t mind though, I wasn’t there for service, just for chicken and waffles. Finally the waitress came and told us to get combo #1, which was 1/4 fried chicken and two waffles. We happily complied.

The meal eventually arrived and looked great. Rather than eat the chicken and waffles as two separate entities, I set to work at carving up the chicken and strategically unloading it on top of the waffles. When I finished, I doused the chaffle (chicken+waffles) with syrup and dug in. I could tell that both the fried chicken or the waffles alone weren’t enough to sustain their own meals. Sure, they were decent, but nothing spectacular. Yet, when their forces were combined the chaffle was truly a force to be reckoned with.

When I finished eating, my body and soul felt rejuvenated. I was ready to take on the world, and it was all because of the unlikely combination of chicken, waffles, syrup and a whole lot of…oil. Or love. Either one works.

PS: You should really check out how classy their website is here.