Finally a Crack Shack in Orange County, Richard Blais has opened his second location of The Crack Shack, which originally is from San Diego. They only use locally raised, free-living chickens without any antibiotics! The Crack Shack specializes in Fried Chicken & Eggs. They offer a variety of sandwiches, slaws, salads, and side dishes. They offer ample parking, but keep in mind they are really busy, I would suggest eating on an off hour if you don’t wait to worry about parking, waiting, or even being able to find a table. You start off by ordering your food outside, they give you a number and you go inside their restaurant to look for seating. The ambiance is very fun, modern barnyard with bean sack games inside and a full bar. They also offer a condiment bar of six different sauces you can try with your chicken and side dishes they offer, it’s very fun.
We ordered quite a few dishes so that we were able to try everything. Started off with their mini biscuits which were delicious and fluffy inside, with a nice slight crisp texture outside. The Miso maple butter to compliment this was good, but I felt the taste of it was too subtle, I would’ve suggested maybe a citrus compound butter to cut all of the richness in the foods they offered.
The Mexican Poutine fries arrived which as they explained are schmaltz fries, pollo asado(chicken marinated with Mexican flavors, and a jalapeno cheese wiz. I liked this dish, I love the fact they had double fried fresh cut French fries, however the only downfall was the dish was a bit too salty for me and I actually do eat saltier foods. The table tried to balance this out with ranch and ketchup which helped, good flavors just a bit too salty.
Matzo Ball Posole, which is a soup that had chicken/Matzo, a chili lime, crisp tortilla chips, and avocado. I enjoyed this soup, especially on a cold evening this hit the spot, the crispy tortilla chips gave a great texture, it really reminded me of a chicken tortilla soup with spices. We also tried the Deviled Eggs which offered a French toast scramble and candied bacon on top. Unfortunately before I could even take a bite someone spilled hot sauce on me and by the time I came back my party had happily enjoyed the eggs without me. My favorite dish of the night besides the fried chicken happened to be their border slaw. It had papaya, mango, jicama, coconut, chili, and pineapples. This slaw was very refreshing and flavorful with great textures, I would definitely come back here and order two of these to myself =), oink! The last two dishes we ordered was the Royale which had a savory breakfast chicken sausage, sunny side egg, smoked chicken, and on their English muffin. I love breakfast sausage but we all know how extremely fatty it is so this was a really nice change up to have it with chicken and I actually enjoyed this dish, I would definitely order it again.
The English muffin was crispy on the outside, and really fluffy inside. Last but not last was the fried chicken, the chicken was absolutely delicious and very flavorful, I love their seasonings. It’s not oily at all, and extremely juicy. I’m usually a dark meat kind of girl but I happily ate up a breast by myself and I really didn’t even need to use their dipping sauces as it was flavorful enough on its way. Crispy outside, moist tender meat, and a non-oily piece of chicken, I am absolutely game! I did finish the meal with one of their home-made chocolate chip cookies which I have to actually say I was disappointed, the textures were on point, it felt as if they didn’t put vanilla, there was not much fragrance to the cookie itself.
Overall I’m really glad The Crack Shack opened out here locally to us. Hands down delicious fried chicken, make sure to order the border slaw to cut all of the fatty and richness of the rest of their foods. Let me know your experience compared to mine.
Restaurant – The Crack Shack
Location – 196 East 17th Street, Costa Mesa, CA 92627
Contact – 949.383.5040
Website – www.crackshack.com
Cuisine – American New, Fried Chicken, Bar