Time for some Pies-n-Thighs! Well, actually, neither as it turns out ...

Ah, Pies-n-Thighs.  I’d been waiting a week to try their fare, ever since my friend Will raved about his lunch from their booth shortly after I finished my sloppy goat.  I had considered eating an early supper on Saturday at the fundraiser for the Serbian Orthodox church across the street (grilled sausage, assorted pastries, carrot cake), but they were closing up for the day when I strolled over.  So, to Food Square it was.
  

I had hoped to get a complete meal from the girls at Pies-n-Thighs, but by 5 pm the pie list looked depleted. So I nixed dessert and doubled up on sides. In minutes I walked away with a chicken biscuit and hearty servings of baked beans and collard greens.

As usual, the small eating area was packed, so I made for the park.  I just so happened to pass a skinless quadruped on a spit over open coals--a whole fucking lamb roasting outdoors in the middle of Manhattan.  Of course I stopped, just as others had, to watch the animal rotate.  Here’s a video, if you don’t believe me (a photograph wouldn’t have done it justice):

I listened as the roastmaster described the taste of lamb brain, which he’d just offered to a passing couple. And as I spoke with him, I learned that this lamb was killed just three days before, and would be going straight into the lamb schwarma served at the adjacent stand--and that they’d be doing another roast next Saturday.  One guess what I’ll be having after work next weekend.  Oh, and before I walked away, the roastmaster informed me that the chicken biscuit on my tray was amazing, and one of the three best things at the Square.  Confident in my selection, I finally found a bench and got down to the business of eating.

the spread

First, the chicken biscuit smelled delicious.  Then, in a small explosion of flavor, it tasted equally terrific. The three-inch biscuit was flaky and crunchy, with browning evident--all qualities sought in a good biscuit.  Three flavors combined perfectly in the sandwich: butter, honey, and hot sauce--with the fired chicken patty and biscuit mere vehicles for this dangerous cocktail.  The chicken was both crisp and moist (chicken’s ideal state, although if you asked a chicken it would say “alive”--but if you’re talking to a chicken you’re probably tripping so hard you that you’ll attempt to eat it in a sandwich as is).  I’m sure the processed patty was locally-sourced and perhaps even prepared in-house, but when I think of fried chicken, I would like to recognize the part of the chicken I’m eating, and have some skin to chew on.  (I’m sorry this post has gotten so graphic and offensive to non-carnivores; first the goat carcass, now all this chicken talk.)  But it was a sandwich after all--and I’m sure they fry a damn good bird at the main branch in Brooklyn.  And perhaps the best part was that the three sauces, after dripping from the sandwich, congealed on the plate to form the ultimate sauce--a powerful food synthesis, and a pleasure to dip my biscuit in.

Now, for the sides.  The beans (enough for two to share) were coated in a spicy-sweet sauce, though not too heavily.  Onions and ham bits complimented the beans, which were chewy and dense--thankfully, because otherwise I would have wolfed down the cup faster than the sandwich.  They were that strangely addictive--crack beans, perhaps?

The collard greens were bitter and refreshing, a nice departure from the other overwhelming flavors.  Topped with hot sauce and punctuated by a smattering of pulled pork pieces,the first bites were flavorful.  But this faded.  Now I don’t know how collard greens should ideally be prepared, so I’m not sure if they should have been so watery.  If any collared connoisseurs read this, forgive me for my ignorance and nit-picking (ugh, what an awful connotation.)

And, slowly, I polished off an incredible, and nearly disgusting, meal.  But unlike the KFC Double Down, the Pies-n-Thighs chicken biscuit resides on the good side of the “amazing/disgusting” line--a line I don’t stray near with my own cooking.  But, if you don’t risk plunging into the abyss of in-edibility, then you'll never know how high your chicken can soar.