New Eats: Tenders are king at Abner’s Famous Chicken at Crosstown
Chicken can be fried up in many forms, but at Abner’s Famous Chicken, the tenders are the thing. (Chris Herrington/The Daily Memphian)
Are chicken tenders kid food or real food?
It’s a trick question. Chicken nuggets are kid food, or food for the kids in all of us. Chicken tenders are adolescent food, or food for the arrested adolescents even the aged among us become from time to time.
It’s food for teenagers and college students, or finger food to nosh while watching a game. So maybe it’s appropriate that the first Abner’s Famous Chicken — where tenders are king — was opened in 1993 in a college town (Oxford, Mississippi) by a former college football player (Abner White).
Now branching out beyond Oxford’s Square, the local Wolf River Hospitality Group last week opened a third Memphis-area Abner’s at Crosstown Concourse, where it replaces the similar Saucy Chicken. (Other local Abner’s are on Poplar in East Memphis and Germantown Parkway in Cordova.)
The switchover didn’t require much physical change, beyond signage and apparently an increase in TV screens tuned to sports.
Abner’s is in a bay next to MEMPops on the more horizontal west end of Midtown’s “vertical urban village,” with six booths, five four tops and roughly 20 bar-style seats. You order at the counter, takeout or dine-in or somewhere in between: Crosstown has lots of shared seating spaces, including plenty outside, just beyond Abner’s doors, and this is the kind of “takeout” food that works well for a short trip elsewhere in the building.
All fried chicken tenders are roughly similar, but they aren’t all the same, and as a Crosstown regular I can say that this exchange is a tenders upgrade. (Still the best fried chicken in the building, however: The Sudanese variation at Global Cafe.)
The Abner’s tenders are clearly whole breast pieces, thicker than most, lightly but nicely spiced, and were seemingly fried to order during two recent trips, arriving too hot to immediately grab. (This is a feature, not a bug. The freshness was worth waiting a few seconds.)
If the tenders are the thing, it doesn’t mean there aren’t choices to make even then. Fried or grilled, for starters. And you can have your tenders alone or as the basis for other menu options: The tacos, quesadillas, wraps and sandwiches are all tenders-based. And you can have them added to salads or baked potatoes.
If you prefer to take your tenders straight, and I do, you can get them in sizes ranging from snack (two tenders, one sauce) to meal (three and two) to shareable (six and three, and thanks for pretending some of us aren’t just going to want six tenders for ourselves). All sizes come with a side item and garlic toast, and I pretty much endorse all things coming with a piece of garlic toast.
Prices range from $6.30 for a “snack” up to $16.80 for shareable.
Among the sauces, the Abner’s Original is a variation on a comeback sauce, creamy and mildly spicy. The honey mustard, like the tenders, is a cut above the average, and maybe then some. Other sauces include variations on ranch, barbecue and buffalo.
The French fries are about the most average I’ve ever had. Average in thickness, average in crispness, average in flavor. My bar for enjoying fries is low and these clear it, but they’re nothing special. The “homemade chips” sound more promising, but these were also fine but pretty average. They are distinctive in that they’re ridged, like artisanal Ruffles.
If you want a less-fried side with your (mostly likely) fried chicken, “bacon ranch pasta salad,” black bean and corn salad and baby carrots are also options.
If tenders are too much, you can also get nuggets. Or, if you prefer chicken on the bone, there are wings, served party style. The wings don’t stand out as much among some obviously heavy Memphis competition, but were also seemingly fried to order and more than solid. A tenders and wings combo (two and four) seems like a sound plan at $12.40.
A warning you probably don’t need: I’m among what is surely a Memphis minority in favoring dry-spiced wings. (Dry > wet: It’s not just for ribs.) But the “seasoned” wings at Abner’s are not much. Get them tossed instead, where the options stick to the basics (hot, lemon pepper, barbecue, sweet chili).
Abner’s Famous Chicken, 1350 Concourse Avenue, Suite 137, is open daily, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. 901-425-2597
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Chris Herrington
Chris Herrington has covered the Memphis Grizzlies, in one way or another, since the franchise’s second season in Memphis, while also writing about music, movies, food and civic life. As far as he knows, he’s the only member of the Professional Basketball Writers Association who is also a member of a film critics group and has also voted in national music critic polls for Rolling Stone and the Village Voice (RIP). He and his wife have two kids and, for reasons that sometimes elude him, three dogs.
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