Fried Pickle Round Up!

I get asked about Fried Pickles a lot and I'm always surprised when people in New York have never heard of them because they are much easier to find here than I ever would have imagined. Fried Pickles originated in the South but their popularity is widespread.

Here's a quick run-down of some of the ones I've tried and tested, near and far, out of my pure devotion to "research":

First up is Jimmy's Diner on Union Street in Williamsburg. I've been here twice and have since retracted my declaration that I find cornmeal battered pickles inferior. These are thin and crispy and really hold their crunch.




Say what you will about Hooters, but they make a damn fine fried pickle. And yes, there is a Hooters in Midtown so don't act like you've never been.


This basket is from Corner Burger in Park Slope. These are the most familiar to me and the closest thing to my favorite authentic Southern fried pickles in taste AND in quantity and cost.


Which leads me to my all time FAVORITE FRIED PICKLES from Ajax Diner in Oxford, MS.
Golden Perfection and the proper dipping sauce, Comeback Sauce.


But fried pickles also come in SPEAR FORM. They aren't my first preference if given a choice but I still love them. These are from a horrible BBQ Joint in South Beach Miami, but hey, who needs BBQ when you can make a meal out of these beefy guys?


In New York I've only found one place that serves fried spears, SoHo Park, and they are very good, but I don't have a picture, so here is a pair of McClure's Spicy Spears I fried up at home:


There are some bad fried pickles out there, so beware. Brother Jimmy's, the Manhattan BBQ franchise, is the worst offender, serving a basket of almost hushpuppy-like balls of dough. These below are from a bar in Bushwick called The Wreck Room which also used way too much batter but still I ate them all...I mean, a bad fried pickle is still a pickle that's been FRIED. I just wouldn't want anyone who has never had a fried pickle to have these as their only representation of a beloved Southern snack.


Just as I thought I could wrap up the fried pickle round up, I went to the Big Apple BBQ Festival in Madison Square Park this weekend. After a small sampling of BBQ it started to rain, so me and a fellow Southerner stepped into a place across from the park on 23rd Street called Live Bait. We both perused the menu and pretended like we might order real "food" but we just couldn't pass up THIS:


My friends have a saying, "If it's green, it's trouble, if it's brown order double"...and we ordered triple;fried pickles, fried jalapeno rings and hushpuppies. So that concludes my summertime Fried Pickle Round Up-now go out there and order brown!