Nashville-style hot chicken establishments are continuing to hatch on the local culinary landscape. Another option to add to that blossoming list: Fiery Chicken Nashville in Plano.

Nestled among the cluster of restaurants and businesses that orbit Asian mega-market 99 Ranch (at North Central Expressway and Spring Creek Parkway), Fiery Chicken Nashville serves up all the spicy bird classics. Traditional Nashville chicken sandwiches, quarter-to-full birds, tenders, wings and chicken sliders can all be found here (and 100% Zabihah halal). The spice ladder climbs six tiers from spiceless to “super fiery.”
The meteoric rise of hot Nashville chicken joints has left us with an abundance of these businesses locally. With that comes increased competition and heightened expectations. The bar has been set high by places like Ricky’s, Lucky’s, Dave’s, Palmer’s and 2 Neighbors (to name a few).

Keeping pace with the leaderboard isn’t easy.

We grabbed lunch recently at Fiery Chicken Nashville to see if it has what it takes to keep up. To start, we went with a quarter-bird (a chicken leg and thigh priced at $11.99), at grease fire level: five (of six) on the spice hierarchy.

This chicken certainly looks the part, with a blood-orange hue that lives up to the name of the place. The battered coating appears borderline flammable. As you’d expect, it’s potent, yet still not quite on par with some of Fiery Chicken Nashville’s counterparts in that department. The flavor itself also fell short of its competition listed above, but the most glaring flaw this chicken suffered was that it stood firmly on the dry side of the fence. The crinkle-cut fries that came with it were good, albeit standard, and they certainly don’t skimp on the portions.
The Nashville chicken sandwich was on our list to sample, but we called a pre-snap audible here and instead opted for the Texan riff on the Nashville version: the Tex Ville chicken sandwich. Basically, it's the Nashville chicken sandwich on what's billed as Texas toast (as opposed to a brioche bun).

To us, the toast was more Wonder Bread white bread than Texas toast. And again, the chicken breast, which was at least good-sized, had the same shortcoming as before: It was a touch dry. We had this sandwich turned up to the highest heat level one could go and didn't discern a noticeable spice difference between it and our quarter-bird from earlier — but then again, things can get hazy when you’re exploring the farthest edges of the heat spectrum that a particular hot chicken spot has to offer. One plus the sandwich had: the sweet pickle slices were delightful and some of the best we’ve had in a hot chicken sandwich.
Despite swinging and missing a couple of times, there was still an opportunity for our visit to be rescued. The mac and cheese was our last hope, and it delivered. And it should for $13.99. It was creamy and topped with ample chopped chicken tenders; you’d be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable mac and cheese dish than this.

In our overall experience, Fiery Chicken Nashville has potential. The service was friendly, and with a few tweaks, we can see them being mentioned alongside the likes of some of the premier hot chicken restaurants in town. But they have some work to do. And it's worth noting this was our only visit to Fiery Hot Nashville. It could’ve just been an off day; no restaurant is immune to them. And the customer reviews are stellar (4.6 average on nearly 600 Google reviews), so they’re clearly doing something right.

Fiery Chicken Nashville, 151 W. Spring Creek Parkway, No. 509, Plano. Monday – Thursday, 11 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.; Friday – Saturday, 11 a.m. – 10 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. – 8 p.m.