The Crack Shack (San Diego).

I have a new top 25 pro prospects ranking up for Insiders.

When in San Diego briefly last week, I had the pleasure of visiting The Crack Shack, the new fried chicken-all-the-damn-time place from the same creative team (including Top Chef winner Richard Blais) behind its Little Italy neighbor, Juniper & Ivy, right before I popped in to see potential #1 overall pick Mickey Moniak. The Crack Shack’s executive chef, Jonathan Sloan, is also a huge baseball fan, so he had the kitchen send out a few extra items for me and a friend to sample while we were there, so (1) I tried a LOT of food and (2) bear in mind some of this was compliments of the chef.

The short version is that if you like fried chicken – and I love me some fried chicken – you are going to love the Crack Shack, because it’s fried chicken every which way and it’s all really good. Chef Sloan described their sourcing – they’re getting some of the best, freshest chickens available, locally raised Jidori chickens, a trademarked breed known for better flavor than your typical mass-market bird. The chickens are also raised cage-free and, most importantly in my view, without antibiotics. Just about everything else on the menu is sourced locally too, as at Juniper & Ivy, but the chicken is at the center of almost every dish.

My “main” lunch – the item I actually ordered – was the Señor Croque, a sandwich of fried chicken, bacon, a fried egg, miso-maple butter, cheddar (I left this off because I despise it), all served on a fresh brioche bun. I would fly across the country to eat this again. It has ruined nearly all other fried chicken sandwiches for me. (The exception would be the Fried Chicken Sando at Tempe’s nocawich, also found at the Phoenix airport.) The chicken is breaded, dipped in buttermilk, breaded again, and chilled so the breading really sets on the meat (and doesn’t fall off), and there’s something so decadent about the whole thing that makes it hard to believe you’re eating a $12 sandwich and not, say, a $30 steak.

Of everything else that came out, my favorite item was the chicken oysters – the oyster is a small piece of dark meat attached to the tip of the thigh that is the most tender meat on the entire bird – which are pickle-brined and fried, served with meyer lemon and mustard tartar sauce. The term oyster refers to its shape more than its texture; again I’d compare this to a good steak or any highly fatty meat in texture, because it’s almost melt-in-your-mouth soft, which gives a good contrast to the crispy crust. You absolutely need that acidity from the lemon too.

The chicken ‘lollipops’ are at the opposite end of the spectrum if you want something you can really dig your teeth into – drumsticks slightly reshaped into lollipops, and they’re subtly spicy, seasoned with togarashi, a Japanese spice mix of chili pepper, seaweed, sesame seeds, and sometimes orange peel and ginger too. We also tried some of their straight-up fried chicken, which had outstanding texture inside and out with a custom spice blend in the breading, but we ended up passing some of that over for the oysters and the lollipops.. We also sampled the Mexican poutine, a big mess of fries fried in chicken fat (schmaltz), topped with pollo asado and jalapeño cheese wiz. You can also get the fries plain, and they’re as crispy as you’d expect (frying in saturated fats makes a huge difference in flavor and texture).

The Crack Shack has a few non-fried items and a few non-chicken items, as well as a breakfast sandwich of chicken sausage, egg, and smoked cheddar on an English muffin. They offer six side sauces for any of your items, and you can order either of two slaws or two salad options (I got the baby kale Caesar, which was a necessary plant item in the middle of the sea of meat). They also have biscuits served with miso-maple butter, which I’m sure I’d adore but did not dare order because that might have ended my day then and there.

The Crack Shack has a full bar and its own cocktail menu, although since it was the middle of the day I did not partake. Without booze, you could get a substantial meal here for about $20 that is more than reasonable for ingredients of this quality, which are on par with what you’d get at very high-end restaurants but available in fried form. I drove back by the restaurant that evening, a Tuesday, and there was a line out the door around 7 pm, so plan your trip accordingly.

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I’ve written about Juniper & Ivy at length and briefly here, so I won’t go overboard in writing about my light dinner there, which comprised a lot of plants and no meat other than the raw yellowtail in one item. But I do want to mention the BBQ carrots, which might be the best vegan dish I have ever eaten in my life. They’re grilled, even lightly charred, skin-on, and served over chimichurri with smoked peanuts and dollops of pickled apricot puree. I’ve never had anything like this – it was a giant bomb of sweet and sour – and it’s possible I’ve got some apricots pickling in my fridge right now to recreate this. J&I’s menu changes often but if you get there soon I can’t recommend this dish highly enough.