By: Daiyu Tang
Photos: Daiyu Tang ((No AI))
I would like to tell you dear readers that there are moments in journalism when the noble pursuit of truth requires sacrifice. Maybe you are thinking of moments like throwing myself into watching man vs. alligator, or attending gang events, or even having to deal with a flayed skull while interviewing. You’d be right, those were sacrifices of personal safety or more blandly, hours and hours of time. Sometimes it’s reading official statements from Krystal that use twelve paragraphs to say ‘I am the best and we did not do it‘ when, in fact, they probably did at least some of it and are probably no where near ‘best’. And sometimes, dear readers, it is eating fried chicken from a truck that appears to have been advertised by someone with A LOT OF PENT UP ANGER. While the poster at the end of this article, is not the official print ad, it is made out of the radio ad, that had a lot of horns, swearing and questionable lines to it… So yes, I was expecting sacrifice when I went to review the place. I make home crystal dumplings, I can hand make noodles and grow some of my own herbs and vegetables… So yes, visiting Jimmie’s Chicken Shack, the big yellow truck currently serving food to Hathian which has all the subtlety of an airhorn taped to a rooster was… a sacrifice.
“Hungry? Then get your ass down to Jimmie’s MF’ing Chicken Shack. Parked somewhere in the city. Probably. Look for the big yellow truck. Seriously, it is a clucking big yellow truck. If you cannot find it, you stupid!?”
As marketing strategies go, it is not exactly delicate!
Something Fishy
I arrived at the truck expecting noise (more so than normal Hathian), grease and the strong chance that whomever worked at the shack would try to sell me chicken out of a container that had also recently held car parts or HGH ‘leftovers’… Afterall the ad says they’ll cook ‘anything‘! What I found was satisfaction (which had a lot to do with the staff).
Maya, one of the staff members, had only started the night before. She told me she had worked nearby before, at the Slab, and was used to the area. If you can survive the Slab, a chicken truck is at worst a lateral move and as an added bonus it doesn’t have a freezer you can be locked in if you misbehave. Although I guess it does run the risk of cooking you alive in Hathian’s weather. What providence gives, providence takes right?
I had one burning question for Maya which related to how there was a sign on the truck that said it served fish and chips, but only when the manager was present. I queried Maya on this; “If I had to guess I’d say its cause fish n chips is British cuisine, so she wants to make sure its authentic.”
Fish and chips are not complicated in theory. Fish. Batter. Fryer. Chips. Salt. Vinegar. But apparently at Jimmie’s, the fish is not just fish. It is a matter of managerial pride, imported supplies of Turbot and personal standards. So I did what any committed reporter would do… I bought food and waited for the manager to determine who in Hathian was so dedicated to their fish… in a chicken truck.
The Chicken: Comfort Food
Before Robin arrived, Clivia appeared. My future wife claimed she was simply hungry for chicken, or else perhaps she was stalking me, which I am ok with. If she’s got that level of commitment now, definitely a keeper right?
Anyway, showing us how a small person puts away a mountain, Cliv ordered a Tendie Town platter and a Yeet the Meat sandwich. She later gave the sandwich an 8/10.
“Needs more pickles, less lettuce and… a little more heat in the sauce,” she said. “But all in all the best chicken sandwich in town.”
That is, for Clivia, a restrained and almost scholarly review (which for those who know her… is… unusual). My own chicken was better than expected. That sounds like a mild compliment, but from me, in Hathian, and regarding food served out of a loud yellow truck, it should be understood as praise (faint maybe, but still on the right side of ‘eat here’). The fries were decent, not quite Maccies level addictive, but good. The chicken had crunch, heat, and salt enough to remind you that the truck sells soft-drinks as well.
It is not fine dining. Fine dining has tablecloths, tiny portions and men called Monsieur explaining foam to you. That’s not us in Hathian.
Jimmie’s is comfort food. Bad food, in the best way. The kind you eat after a night out at the TT, or Sinners… For curing a hangover, before a bad decision to do something that HPD won’t like or after a worse one that they HAVE found out, but not caught you yet… In short, it’s something you can eat quite often in Hathian.
Enter Robin
Robin, manager of Jimmie’s Chicken Shack, arrived with a cigarette and some real energy, AND she also immediately called me cute. This is inaccurate, as I prefer ‘terrifying’, ‘sharp’, or ‘beautiful in a way that suggests consequences’… but it’ll do.
Robin is British, armed (visibly apparently with no HPD issues), flirtatious, and appears to be running the truck with a mixture of care, chaotic humour and what she described as “creative business finances”. This was said with the facial expression of someone trying very hard not to say something illegal out loud.
When asked why she had ended up in Hathian, Robin gave an answer that sounded… well like a lot of us who call Hathian our home make these answers sound, complicated.
“I dunno ‘ow to say it in a way ‘at’s fit for a newspaper,” she said. “I mean, I s’pose I’m like jus’ about everyone else ’round ‘ere. Burned every bridge I ever walked across back ‘ome, looked behind me an’ saw nothin’ but smoke an’ ash, so I left. Wandered for quite a while. Ended up ‘ere. Made some unexpected connections that I decided I cared about, an’ so I stuck ’round.”
Stuck around and chosen chicken!
The Fish Test
Then came the fish and chips. I asked about cod, because cod is the traditional answer and I am, pretty well versed in British food. Because I’m British. Because I lived in London… Robin immediately corrected me: “Turbot. We use Turbot. Better ‘an Cod in my mind.” Bold. Controversial. She explained that it gets imported and that she prefers making it herself rather than trusting Ruckus, her chicken man, with fish.
The fish arrived in golden batter, over chips, with salt and vinegar doing what salt and vinegar should do without turning everything into a soggy funeral. The batter had crunch, the fish had proper texture rather than collapsing and the whole thing was good. My verdict at the table was simple enough: “Mmh…. that’s quite good!” Robin would have got the use of ‘quite’; us Brits can share a little language joke.
Robin, Hathian and Being Seen
Because this is Hathian, no article can be only about chicken. The city has a way of getting its dirty little fingerprints on everything. I asked Robin whether Hathian had been decent to her. She pushed back, fairly, on what I meant by that. Was I asking because she is from England? Because she is a foreigner? Or because, as she put it with wonderful directness, she has “a dick in me pants” and I might think her a trans woman? The answer was yes. I was asking because all of those things matter and because, I’m a snoopy snoop as Cliv likes to say.
Robin’s answer was honest. There have been ‘ups and downs’. She had ‘not intended’ to stay. Hathian was supposed to be one more speed bump in a longer escape, until she found people who accepted her as family. That to me dear reader, is what counts and inn Hathian, it may count more than it should. Family have you when others won’t or can’t.
Final Verdict
Jimmie’s Chicken Shack is loud. Very loud. The truck is yellow enough to be seen from most angles of Hathian at once (and even around corners due to how light works), and the whole operation has the energy of a place that might serve you dinner, insult you, and somehow make you grateful for both.
But the food works. The chicken is good comfort food, the fries are decent, Clivia gave the sandwich an 8/10 and Robin’s fish and chips are worth seeking out when she is around to make them. As for Robin herself, she is very much part of the appeal: big mouth, sharp edges, loyal streak, English opinions, dangerous confidence and enough sincerity.
So yes, I would go back. Your mileage and scores might vary depending on whether you are drunk, or hung-over, with a post bar-crawl chicken probably the best way to experience it.
Observer verdict: 8/10 for the chicken, higher for the fish, and several points still pending for manager-related bird adventures.
