Food: Southern comfort comes to the SoMa

Smothered: Some people like to dunk their chicken and waffles in the amazing gravies offered at Little Skillet in SoMa. (Bret Putnam/Special to The Examiner)

SAN FRANCISCO — Fried chicken. The very sound of it makes my mouth water — until I actually take a bite. Too often fried chicken doesn’t live up to my fantasy. But now I have Little Skillet, a permanent food stall in a red-brick SoMa building with an ordering window that opens onto an alley batting distance from AT&T Park. I have fallen hard for this place. I like everything about it.

Little Skillet’s fried chicken is incredibly moist — even the breast — without being the least bit oily. The spicy coating is golden and crisp and adheres to the flesh. Two pieces of chicken come in a waxed brown box with a flat “angel biscuit,” undoubtedly named for its ethereal texture and buttery flavor underscored by cheddar. A choice of side dish is included in this $6.50 box lunch.

Tangy cole slaw in ginger-scented cream, and chilled cucumber hunks in clear, sweet-and-sour liquid, contrast with the richness of the chicken. Red creamer-potato salad slathered in grain-mustard sauce, and a surprising macaroni salad of tiny al dente tubes and shells dressed in a piquant relish of minutely diced raw vegetables, chopped parsley and mint, support it.

Jay Foster, who also owns Farmerbrown, cooks not just American here, but African-American and Southern, with a slant toward New Orleans. He uses beautiful Bay Area ingredients, giving us the best of two worlds.

If you can get past the chicken, consider Little Skillet’s po’boys ($9), served with paper-thin house fried potato chips and homemade pickles. A soft but crusty bun, creamy pink remoulade sauce and shredded lettuce and tomato lay the groundwork for a heaped-on filling such as  plump, juicy shrimp quickly sautéed with peppers and onions in the creole shrimp po’boy. This is a meal, not just a sandwich.

Did I mention waffles? You can order a tender buttermilk waffle with fried chicken ($7) and a side of thick, creamy sausage gravy, mushroom gravy or maple syrup (all $1 each). I’ve witnessed people dunking both chicken and waffle into these. (That immaculate chicken? Are they crazy?) Or, you can have an airy waffle with powdered sugar and house syrup ($3.50) by itself. Personally, I’m partial to the Eggs McMahon ($6), a popular blackboard special of a waffle topped with two runny eggs, cheddar, lots of sausage gravy and chopped scallions.

If you must have a salad, and I understand that, the BLT salad ($8) with big squares of distinctively sweet applewood smoked bacon, avocado, cherry tomatoes and crumbly cornbread croutons, evenly coated in thin, bright-flavored green ranch dressing, comes as close to the satisfactions of a sandwich as a salad can get.

Refreshing, tart, fresh-squeezed lemonade mixed with iced tea in equal proportion ($2) works with the food.

All this pleasure comes out of a window framed with wooden shutters and manned by a friendly, efficient staff. Though a line often stretches down the alley, it moves quickly and the food comes out fast. Many take their compostable box lunches back to the office — or the ballpark — but even more find a place on the loading dock across the alley or on plastic milk crates that are scattered about the area.

The whole system works like a dream. Why isn’t there a Little Skillet in every neighborhood?

Patricia Unterman is author of the recently released second Edition of the “San Francisco Food Lovers’ Pocket Guide.” Contact her at pattiu@concentric.net.


Little Skillet

Location: 360 Ritch St. (off Townsend Street just west of Third Street), S.F.

Contact: (415) 777-2777, www.littleskilletsf.com

Hours: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday

Price range: $3.50 to $9

Recommended dishes: Fried chicken; shrimp creole po’boy; BLT salad; waffles

Note: Cash-only window service; pre-orders accepted