Hidden Gem: Indian food at the Napoleon Ohio T/A!

This is going to be a slightly biased blog entry, I guess. I don't have anything bad to say about this place. None, zero, zilch, nada. I LOVE THIS PLACE! I stop here every chance I get just for the Indian food.

Alright, so where is Napoleon, Ohio? That's a really good question, actually, because it's not on one of the major interstates in Ohio. It's actually on US-24/US-6, between Fort Wayne Indiana and Toledo Ohio. Don't be fooled though, US-24 is a major thoroughfare with an interstate feel to it. On this heavily traveled-by-trucks road is Napoleon, home to a few major truck stops and..Campbell's Soup. (among a few other places but last time I was there, this is where I had to go).

This is not your typical T/A. It's a little older, yes, but it did have some remodeling done which has made a difference. They have a Chester's Fried Chicken and a Blimpie's..or was it Quizno's?...no I'm pretty sure it's Blimpie's. They have the usual Country Pride menu but they also have their own special Indian menu, and this alone is worth stopping for. Also worth noting is the Indian menu is part of their all you can eat menu, and you can reorder the same thing but a little more spicy if you want to turn it up a notch.

I began my introduction into Indian food with a simple mild chicken curry with basmati rice and naan. What's naan, you ask? It's a type of flat bread. There, now you have a new word you can throw around and sound pompous and arrogant "Oh, I could really go for some naan right now!" and people around you will be like "wtf are you talking about, Willis?" Yeah okay I know that's not what Gary Coleman's character said exactly but I changed it with the times.

Can we just get back to the food, please? So, right, the chicken curry was really good. It was surprisingly good. I had never had Indian food before so I wasn't sure what to expect. The one thing that did seem unusual was...the color. Bright colors because of the spices that go into it. Green, yellow, orange..such an interesting departure from what I'm used to.

After a great first time experience (and filling, too, by the way), I made a note to always stop here if I had the time. Believe me, I try to make time to stop here. While I don't have pictures of chicken curry, or the other chicken dish I tried the second time I was there, I do have a picture of my third visit and what I tried that time.

Haag chicken..or chicken haag? It's one or the other.

Liz, what is that green unappetizing mush I see before me? Well let me tell you, it's delicious green mush! Haag chicken is...chicken (shocker), with spices and spinach. It's amazing. It's wonderful. It's tasty. It's worth trying. Like every other time I've ordered Indian food, I ordered it with basmati (long grain) rice with naan on the side. I tried the plain naan and that was fine, but then I tried the garlic naan and that's what I've ordered on the side ever since.

Naan! You better get some now before there's...naan left. (the puns just write themselves here)

See? Nothing fancy, just an oven-baked flatbread that you can eat along with your tasty Indian cuisine or you can break it off into bite sizes (well you should do that anyway because you, my loyal blog readers, are sophisticated individuals and not hulking neanderthals). Where was I again? Oh right, you can break the naan off into smaller pieces and put some of your delicious Indian cuisine on top and eat it that way. Both ways are perfectly acceptable and you're not going to offend someone if you don't eat it a particular way.

So how was that Haag chicken, Liz? IT WAS FANTASTIC! It was delicious, it was great, it was worth ordering a second time. It was also filling. I never leave that restaurant hungry, not by a long shot. Usually by the time I'm done, I don't want to look at food for the next hour. It's a little bit more expensive than the normal truck stop menu, which I attribute to higher cost of imported spices, the extra effort involved in making it and the extra training involved by the cooks who actually make it. Rumor has it (and this is coming from one of the cooks), this food is so good that a few Indian patrons were convinced that it was made by a man from India and the men were surprised it was prepared by a Caucasian lady from the US. That's just the rumor I heard! Don't go spreading that around.

I guess it goes without saying that I highly recommend stopping here. How often do you get to find Indian food at a truck stop? Well there's that one place in Tennessee that I haven't tried yet. Okay, where else can you find Indian food at a truck stop? Exactly! 

Don't be intimated by the odd colors or the weird names. Try something new, try something different. Another thing worth nothing about the Indian food here is that you can get it in 3 levels of spiciness: mild, medium or hot. If you're new, get the mild just for starters. You can always reorder and try the medium. Funny thing about those Indian spices: the burn stops shortly after you finish eating. Unlike spicy American food where the heat lingers long after, shortly after you've stopped eating, the spicy burn stops. I didn't believe it myself until I tried it myself and the lady was right! Now in my defense, I've only tried mild and medium. I'm tempted to try hot next time but I usually just play it safe and go with medium.

Next time you're in Napoleon, don't stay at the Pilot or the Petro, try this place instead for a break from the norm. :)

Things in your food that don't belong there.

First up, Wendy's in Ruther Glen, VA. I decided to try their salad that came with chili on it. Seemed like an odd combination to me but hey, maybe it works! When I was about 3/4ths of the way done with my salad, I bit into something that shouldn't have been there.

(please pardon the white ring on my thumb from where my thumb ring normally resides)

Yes, that was in fact a plastic bread tie in my salad. The only explanation I had for this was that I had ordered a small sandwich in addition to the salad, so when they were making my order, they started the salad first and then went to make the sandwich and by unfortunate luck, the bread tie for the buns fell into my salad. I can see that being an honest mistake, and I didn't cut my mouth open on it or get it wedged between my teeth so I was really understanding about how this could have accidentally happened.

I sent a message on Twitter to Wendy's and received a response within the hour. That, on it's own merit, was pretty impressive. They asked me to email them with the picture and they'll have someone take care of it. So I did just that. I emailed them and attached a picture for their records (if they needed it, I don't know). I told them I wasn't looking for a hefty cash settlement or free Frosty's for life because of it, I just wanted the employees there to be a little more mindful when they're working. I'm sure it's a fast-paced environment and trying to hustle to get food orders out, things happen.

The response I received was very polite and nice. It was actually from someone at the Flying J truck stop where this location is found, and in fact she was next to me in line that day and saw what I had ordered and it looked so good she decided to order one herself. While I again stressed I wasn't looking for any handouts or free stuff, the really nice lady was insistent that she'd like to send something out to apologize for my inconvenience. I included my mailing address but last I checked, I don't believe anything has arrived at home from Pilot or Wendy's. I'll check for sure myself next time I'm home, though.

Second instance was at Arby's in Nitro WV. I love Arby's, even if you need to take out a second mortgage to pay for lunch, their mozarella sticks are addicting! They have a new smokehouse sandwich that looked really enticing and appetizing. So much so that on this particular late night, I decided to give it a try.

A few bites into my sandwich, however, I found something that didn't belong there.

At first glance you'd think this was a piece of lettuce or something. Let me assure you, it was paper. And not just a piece of paper but a tightly folded up piece of paper. In this particular instance, I don't think this was accidental, just by the nature of what it was, and how it was found inside my sandwich. Could it have been an honest mistake? Maybe, but doubtful. Could it have been the result of two of the three employees working there being stupid kids? Possibly. It was late at night and I was the only customer so an accidental happening due to a long line of customer orders doesn't fly in this case. I think this was the result, like I said, of two young men being dumb, thinking it would be funny to do.

Like the Wendy's incident, I sent a picture of this to Arby's on Twitter and so far currently, I have yet to receive a response back about it. I'm extremely disappointed by this.

Off the Beaten Path: Prince's Hot Chicken, Nashville TN

This particular blog entry is long overdue.

Like...way long overdue.

If this entry had been a library book, I would have owned it by now just in the total cost of overdue fines. (those quarters add up over time)

Every time I have an opportunity to spend the night in Nashville TN, I contact my friend Julie to see what she's up to. Some times we just spend a few hours at a truck stop catching up, talking about whatever, and laughing a lot. Other times...she takes me to new and exciting places! This particular dining adventure was..exciting to say the least.

Now here's my disclaimer for the truck drivers reading this blog: you won't be able to get to Prince's chicken in a truck. I'm very sorry to report that. There's simply no room. No room for a tractor and trailer. Considering how popular Prince's is, there's really no room for a tractor. I'm also not exactly sure if the main drag that this is slightly off of is even a truck route. However, if you have a friend who has a car, or know someone who has a car, or hell, you rent a car! then you'll be fine.

So what's the deal with Prince's Hot Chicken? I mean it was on the Food Network so that means the prices are automatically inflated 20%, right? Maybe, I'm not sure. I don't set the prices, talk to the management. Prince's has a lot of good things going for it. Granted some of it is good in a bad way, and the rest of it is good in a good way. There's just one teensy little detail that might give people hesitation, I know it did for me but Julie assured me we'd be fine. Besides, she's got street cred (I didn't ask to see said credentials, I just took her word on it). So what's that teensy little detail? Well....it's....um....it's in the ghetto.

Don't worry, you're not going to get shot, mugged, carjacked, robbed or have your hubcaps stolen. I mean, Julie and I went around 9/10pm AT NIGHT and we were just fine. Nobody approached us, nobody tried to sell us drugs or fake rolex watches or try to flash us. Her car was still there when we left the restaurant, it wasn't up on 4 cinder blocks with the tires removed.

So why am I making such a big deal out of this? Not everyone is racially accepting, and going somewhere to eat where you're the minority for once can be intimidating to some people. And trust me, you'll be in the minority here. But are you going to let that stand between you and some freaking amazing fried chicken?

I know what you're thinking: "it better be some damn good fried chicken, Liz"
Oh....it is, and I don't usually eat fried chicken.

So where is this place, Liz? Well I'm glad you asked, brave foodie adventurer! The address is: 123 Ewing Dr #3. Nashville TN. Don't ask me for directions, because I have no clue since I wasn't driving. US-41 was the main street. Once you get to Ewing (assuming you're driving...north? whatever up is on the map, lol), turn left and it's in a run down strip mall on the right hand side.

So before we talk about the food, let's talk about the peculiarities of this joint, shall we?

First of all, Prince's is open late. This makes it a God-send to us truck drivers with wonky schedules who have a friend in town who wants to take us there. If you come during the day time, there's a good chance you won't find parking. I mean there is parking in the strip mall but chances are it'll be full...and there may be people parked on the street just to get some of this chicken. Yes, it's that good that people park up and down the street for it.

Second of all, the restaurant itself is...small. In a typical business day for them, they probably violate some capacity code every hour, no, half hour. They have really good chicken and a lot of people want it.

Third of all, the furnishings are....dated. old. run down. beat up. worn. tattered. used. seen-better-days. It's not high class by any means, and that actually adds to the charm of the place. It's very much a hole in the wall. Come to think of it, that's also how you order..at the hole in the wall, but I digress.

Fourth. You're totally safe here. They have an armed off-duty police officer. But don't you dare touch the TV set that he's watching! He also has no qualms about plainly showing that he is in fact packing heat, so don't try any funny business. Besides, we're all here for insanely good chicken, let's just all get along and not try to have a heart attack after eating. (BYONitroglycerin)

Fifth. The window painting out front. It's faded, it's scratched, it looks like it was done in the 70s because, surprise! it was. I'm sure it's lead-based paint, too. But who cares, we're here for chicken, not lead poisoning!

Sixth. This was probably the most surprising to me, but..it kind of wasn't. Prince's is incredibly popular among the Black community (that wasn't the surprising part). As such, it's a popular place where you'll most likely run into people you only kind of know but have seen frequently like from church, or the grocery store, or dropping/picking up your kids from school and you're like "hey I know you, your son is friends with my son!" Or you'll be walking in and standing further up in line could be the pastor from your church. You'll never know who you'll run into at Prince's and that's the community beauty of it: Prince's brings people together.

So I've talked this place up (I hope?), so I guess it's time to mention the food.
The beauty of Prince's is also it's simplicity: it's fried chicken, well here in Nashville it's hot chicken. Hot chicken not only means temperature hot, but also spicy hot. I should make a second disclaimer about the food here: you're going to have to wait for it. All the fried chicken here is made fresh to order. It's not sitting under a heat lamp until you order it. It's cooked fresh, and loyal readers, that makes a world of difference.

As I said, there are degrees of spiciness: mild, medium, hot, extra hot, and ... believe it or not, extra extra hot. I wouldn't recommend the XX hot. In fact I think you actually have to sign a waiver for that one. People have gone to the emergency room over the XX hot chicken. Now is not the time to prove how manly you are, cowboy. I went with the mild, and even mild had a little bit of a zing to it. Julie, I think, ordered medium but she's used to it. She suggested to me that I start with mild. So that's my hot tip for Prince's Hot Chicken: err on the side of caution!

That's my Prince's Hot Chicken mild edition picture showing off a breast and a wing, potato salad, pickles, sweet tea and....the bread. It's not fancy by any means. No expensive plate. No sprig of parsley you're just going to throw out the window (if you're eating in your car...and people do!). No frills. Nothing fancy. Simple and easy.

I'm really not sure if the side dishes are home made or bought from like Sysco or something. Really though, side dishes here are just turn it into a complete the meal. I felt like sweet tea was the ideal compliment to fried chicken (being in the south and all). Julie had some type of fruit punch that I forgot the name of.

What's the purpose of the bread, Liz? Well I'm glad you asked because that, too, is just as important as the chicken it's cradling. The bread itself is dual purpose. It can help calm your burning tongue because it some how makes the burning feeling go away (as does milk, just fyi) and it also soaks up the grease from that freshly fried chicken on top of it. Now you have two options: don't eat the bread because it's nothing but white bread and chicken grease, OR...eat the bread because it soaked up the chicken grease along with some of the spiciness of the chicken as well.

If my cardiologist just so happens to read this, I'll be happy to inform you that I did not eat the grease-soaked bread.

If my cardiologist isn't reading this: I totally ate the bread! It has just enough spices soaked in to give you that reminder zing of heat. For the record, eating the bread is completely optional. Everyone who comes to Prince's has their own stance on the bread issue. Some eat it, some don't. Either way is fine, it's personal preference.

So how was the chicken, Liz? It was....really really good. Surprisingly good. Unbelievably good. Shockingly good, even. I mean..it's fried chicken! You've had it, I've had it. Then you try Prince's and you'll be like "You know, I've had fried chicken before but this....this is something else. How did they improve fried chicken?! They totally took fried chicken and made it better. How is that possible?!"

Okay so maybe that's what I thought.
How....I mean....you just....and they.....how'd they do that?! Is it the spices? Is it the freshness? Is it the batter? How do you take something so simple and basic, that doesn't need to be improved and some how manage to improve it and make it better? It's mind boggling but they did it! I was blown away with how good this was.

Put this place on your bucket list: eat at Prince's Hot Chicken in Nashville TN.

Prince's Hot Chicken: GO THERE! actually go with a friend, it's more fun that way. :)

P.S. I probably should have been referring to it as hot chicken and not fried chicken. I mean, hot chicken has it's own Wikipedia page. So for that I do apologize and ask you not hold it against me.