Style over Substance?

Fork & Hen is a popular little café with pretty good food. The atmosphere is closer to diner than fine food and the place could use some sprucing up. Service is casual.

We started with the Aguachile Tuna appetizer. It was delicious and the serving was large. It was accompanied by delicious homemade crackers. I also asked for an unsweetened iced tea. I asked for any artificial sweetener and was told that they only have sugar. So much for serving the customer.

For mains I had the Blue Plate Southern Fried Chicken. I love fried chicken and this was pretty good. There might have been more seasoning in the crust. I prefer my fried chicken on the bone and this was various parts of meat only. Under the chicken was a huge, ungainly and rather flavorless corn cake the size of the entire plate. This makes cutting the chicken difficult. The honey lavender butter mentioned on the menu must have melted into the corn cake making it a little soggy. On top of the corn cake were some nice collard greens. The dish would have been better with a smaller corn cake on the side and more collards.

We also had the Pressed Chicken Parm sandwich—at least it’s listed under the “Hands” portion of the menu. A bulbous piece of chicken is set between two thick pieces of focaccia making it near impossible to be picked up and eaten. The flavors were all good—once it was deconstructed.

The mains were quite large and good value, providing lots of leftovers. Overall, the food is very good and good value. But the style gets in the way of the substance.