By Arielle Nguyen
The other day, I was scrolling through YouTube when I saw an advertisement about Dave’s Hot Chicken. I was feeling a little peckish, so I went to the popular restaurant and dragged my DHC connoisseur friend along, as you do.
Dave’s Hot Chicken, co-founded by four childhood friends, first opened their doors in 2017 in a parking lot in East Hollywood, serving a limited menu of Nashville-style hot chicken burgers on folding tables and a portable fryer. Today, the American restaurant chain presents spicy, robust and savory chicken tenders, house-made coleslaw and seasoned french fries to the public … with the new addition of a plant-based burger.
Dave’s Hot Chicken? More like Dave’s Not Chicken.
Now, because I can’t tolerate pain in my mouth, I ordered a Dave’s Not Chicken slider with a mild spice level, along with the regular chicken counterpart. The advertisement, posted by the official Dave’s Hot Chicken account, states that “The cauliflower is soft, and it has a meaty texture. The actual cauliflower flavor is very faint … magnificently crispy.”
And they were not sugarcoating it. The Dave’s Not Chicken was im-peck-able. It’s honestly just the seasoning that makes the cauliflower and chicken taste almost identical; the texture doesn’t change drastically, either. It has the same type of “rippy” feeling that you taste when you bite into chicken. The prices, sadly, are slightly more expensive for the plant-based option. For example, the regular chicken slider is $6.99, whereas the cauliflower slider is $8.99. For other, bigger meals, the price ranges from a $2 to $4 increase. However, for the identical quality? For the fist-sized cauliflower you get? I can get behind it.
“For years, our fans have been asking us to make a meatless option that has all the flavor, crunch and spice of our Hot Chicken,” Dave’s Hot Chicken CEO Bill Phelps said. “After spending weeks in the test kitchen testing countless different products, just like the founders did back in the parking lot pop-up days, we’ve created a meat alternative that’s so tasty, even our most dedicated Hot Chicken loyalists will want to try it.”
I’ve never had Dave’s Hot Chicken before, but that sauce? That garlicky, sweet and zesty sauce? Wow, he knows how to lay it on chick.
