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Jeanne and Roxanne ate iceberg salads with extra dressing, and picky Alexandra wrinkled her nose at the baked-potato soup. "It tastes very grainy, like it's made with Cream of Wheat," she said.
I tasted it and agreed that it seemed vaguely coarse, not nearly as good as the chicken-dumpling soup I ordered. Filled with hunks of chopped-up bird and fat, doughy noodles, it was far better than the soup at Stroud's.
Granny's signature dish is served family-style. The platter was heaped with plump breasts, legs and thighs of succulent chicken; it was a pleasure just biting into the crispy, golden crust.
"Very, very good," Jeanne murmured after a few bites.
Only Alexandra wasn't content with her meal. Unlike the rest of us, she ordered a chicken potpie and thought the "filling" of the dish, under a flaky crust, was gummier and less creamy than the same dish at Potpie in Westport. But few pot pies in town could compete with that restaurant's namesake.
I'm fussy about pot pies, too, so I was glad I'd ordered the fried stuff — an all-breast dinner. At one point, though, I started looking longingly at the legs and thighs on the other platter and nearly snagged one. I found my self-restraint at the last minute.
But I lost it again when the server rattled off the dessert list, which included a hefty slab of chocolate cake (the only item here imported from a commercial bakery). It looked a lot more fabulous than it tasted, but it would feed a family of 10. Next time, I'll go for the bread pudding made from the leftover cinnamon rolls.
I took a chicken breast home and had it for breakfast the next morning. It was excellent cold, and that proves my theory that there's only one way to perfectly fry a chicken. But the secret is a four-letter word.