Smoking while deep-frying is highly ill-advised
(Credit: Amir Kenan)
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Or you could get a whole 13-pound Cajun spice-injected, deep-fried turkey. Your choice.
This Thanksgiving, while others are busy stuffing, basting and merrily contracting salmonella from their turkeys, Tasty Q Bar-B-Que can transform your raw bird into a deep-fried beauty.
Tasty Q Bar-B-Que is a land of pigs feet, greens and Cajun-spiced everything, a place where the “mild” sauce is potent enough to cure a cold and the hot sauce can cure cancer—well, maybe. If you’re driving on Crenshaw Blvd., just south of the 10, and you stumble upon a converted Taco Bell with brightly colored, hand-painted murals of chickens running from a boiling pot and a sign that reads “ asty Q Barb cue," congratulations: You’ve officially arrived at deep-fried bird heaven.
Inside, you’ll more turkey-related murals painted on every available surface, along with a TV blasting Oprah and a jukebox that’s heavy on Boyz II Men and Sade. If you’re lucky, you’ll be greeted by Debra, who will let you know her thoughts about L.A. (she wants out!) and ask your opinion on selling some property in Mobile (we’re still weighing the pros and cons). And if you’re really lucky, she’ll let you sample the spicy chicken sausage—made fresh for Tasty Q by a local vendor—that’s part of the hearty $7 lunch combo, a ginormous plate that includes a pork rib, two beef ribs, a half-link of sausage, coleslaw, beans and bread.
But the specialty of the house—and the reason the place gets so busy around the holidays—is the service of one deep, dark, turkey-sized vat of hot oil. While no holiday is without fire hazard, we think it better to leave the turkey to professionals who have the proper blood alcohol levels for the task. First, a few necessary steps:
1) Buy a turkey. Butterball’s handy-dandy turkey calculator indicates one pound of uncooked bird flesh per guest.
2) Thaw turkey. Getting it fresh is a grand but expensive gesture. Yours will most likely be frozen, so allot enough time to thaw thoroughly. Calculation: one day of thawing for every four pounds of bird.
3) Fork over $2.50 per pound. For 50 cents more, Tasty Q can smoke that bad boy in the outdoor smokehouse.
4) Kindly decline the extra spice injection—unless burning off your palate is a holiday tradition. We found the usual amount is quite generous, creating pungent rings of Cajun blend throughout the breast and wings.
4) Wash your hands like Howie Mandel, or some other bald, OCD-afflicted game-show host.
In just a couple of hours, you’ll be driving home with a hot, sweet, vinegary turkey buckled into your passenger seat. (Note: Your car will never smell the same again. Believe us: no amount of new-car spray can eradicate the odor.) While the nice folks at Tasty Q are super-accommodating, they won’t deep fry anything crazy—sorry, fried Mars bar fanatics—or any other kind of poultry—no fried chicken allowed. But they are willing to take on turkey drumsticks or even a whole ham, in case you decide to go medieval for this year’s Thanksgiving dinner.
Amir Kenan is contributing editor for Metromix Los Angeles.
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