First Look: The Cluckin, Chicken and Wings Paired with Tea to Tame the Fire

The Cluckin, at Midway and Frankford Roads, is a new spot that serves Zabiha Halal chicken and beef in the form of tenders, wings and sandwiches. It’s a small space where a line quickly queues at noon when it opens.

Along with chicken wings and tenders the menu lists burgers and sandwiches, including a "Philly and cheese," and a catfish sandwich. An extensive list of smoothies, "Sparkling Ades" (a mix of soda water and fruit flavors) and fruit teas are here to cool your tongue.
The wings and tenders come in multiple-piece sizes ranging from three to 50, with corresponding prices from $5.99 and up. These delectably prepared chicken portions can be ordered Southern fried, which has no sauce, or with any of the 14 available sauces, including garlic Parmesan, lemon pepper, Nashville, K-Town sweet and atomic. There is something for everybody: mild to spicy, savory to sweet and everything in between.
We went with four different sauces, applied to wings and tenders, and included an order of loaded yuca fries. The wings were ordered with Thai sweet chili sauce, which was — surprise, surprise — a perfect combo of sweet and mildly spicy.

For the tenders, the honey garlic had a slight kick, not overpoweringly sweet, hitting the best notes of both the garlic and honey. The mango habanero was slightly sweet and a bit spicier than its Thai sweet chili counterpart. Rounding everything out, the hot and spicy sauce was extremely spicy, bordering on what would be atomic at other places. One could still get some flavor, but the heat was almost too overpowering. “Hot and spicy” is truth in advertising here.

The range of mild to hot for these four selections would be honey garlic on the mild end, then Thai sweet chili, followed by mango habanero and finally hot and spicy. The fruit teas went a long way to both complement and tame the spicy sauce flavors.
In between bites of spicy chicken, we had bits of the loaded yuca fries, which come with onions, nacho cheese and Cluckin sauce. The sauce seems to be some sort of mustard and mayo hybrid, and we might ask that it be held if we ordered the yuca fries again. Still, it was a nice accompaniment to the wings and tenders.
Occasionally sauce can mask an otherwise bland or dry piece of chicken, but rest assured that The Cluckin takes its protein seriously. The chicken was hot and moist and flavorful on its own. The manager Moe was extremely attentive and praised us for showing up early, explaining that sometimes the wait can be 20 to 30 minutes because of the number of customers and the fact that they fry to order. There are no heat lamps evident at this place. Arrive early or prepare to wait a bit.

18110 Midway Road, Unit 104; noon – 10 p.m., Tuesday – Thursday; noon – 10:30 p.m., Friday & Saturday; noon – 7 p.m., Sunday; closed Monday.