There’s no reason to want it — after all, it hurts.
But, when pain yields to head-popping pleasure, there’s nothing quite like the happy sting of spicy food.
“It makes your brain go crazy,” Pawel Grezlikowski says of well-spiced food. “It’s like when people do drugs and it activates dopamine.”
Grezlikowski, 33, sees the phenomenon in action at P.G Clucks his minuscule fried chicken shop at 610 College St., where he serves up what is possibly Toronto’s first ode to “Nashville Hot chicken” — crispy chicken rendered five-alarm by a post-deep-fry plunge into spice.
It originated almost 100 years ago, according to Prince’s Hot Chicken, a fabled Nashville restaurant, when a scorned lover took revenge on her allegedly cheating man by serving him fried chicken sprinkled with “devilish” amounts of hot pepper.
To her dismay, Thornton Prince asked for seconds, according to the restaurant’s website, and that’s when the “legend was born.”
Since P.G Clucks opened in September, customers have flocked to the shop, according to Grezlikowski, waiting in long lines and leaving a greasy ring of chicken drippings and joy outside the diminutive takeout counter. In one recent week, he says, customers gobbled their way through 1,000 pounds of P.G Clucks meat.
“It’s super popular right now,” he says of the hot chicken trend, which he kind of predicted.
Grezlikowski was working as a food entrepreneur crafting and selling charcuterie at farmer’s markets and to restaurants, when one of his clients, who had signed a lease to open a bar on College St., suggested he open a shop in an adjacent space (the same space once housed an unrelated fried chicken operation).
Initially, he planned to showcase his charcuterie by selling fancy sandwiches, but with just 190 square feet of space, he decided to simplify. An avid reader of cookbooks, follower of food trends, and admitted Popeyes Chicken addict, Grezlikowski seized on the hot chicken trend and ran with it.
He and his staff make every order fresh, tipping the chicken — deboned dark meat — twice into a flour dredge with spices including cayenne, garlic, onion and black pepper, before hitting the deep fryer for six minutes. Once the chicken is crisp, staff plunge it into a deep bath of scarlet-coloured cayenne-laced oil. Try it in the classic sandwich ($7) or, as I did, as a two piece ($8 including one side of, say, coleslaw or potato salad).
Each generous order has a brilliantly dark, crispy exterior cradling perfectly cooked, juicy meat and the spice — you can choose your alarm level — first hits the tongue before creeping up your nose. Though high spice can be intimidating, Clucks’ version is tasty and flavourful, rather than requiring a fire extinguisher.
Not to miss is an off-menu item Grezlikowski and his girlfriend pastry chef Stephanie Forgione put together first as a gimmick for Instagram before they realized it tastes “amazing.”
And, it does. If you’re up for a treat, ask nicely for the Jalapeno & Honey sandwich on a cruller ($9). The curvy doughnuts, made fresh in house, are served alone too ($2.50), but they’re sublime as the bun of this sandwich. The crisp bird is drizzled with honey and buttermilk sauce and nestled between the light-as-air doughnut, which is topped with sliced jalapenos. It’s a brilliant mix of sweet and heat.
Watch Pawel Grezlikowski make a local version of Nashville Hot chicken on thestar.com. Need something Sourced? Email mhenry@thestar.ca
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