[Something Delicious] Chicken Strips at The Bent Mast

Isn't it delightful when something is better than it needs to be?

A pleasant local pub, The Bent Mast

Welcome back to Something Delicious, an occasional newsletter-within-a-newsletter where I highlight dishes I love to eat around town. Previously I covered the Mujadara at Syriana Café.

There is no real reason that the chicken strips at The Best Mast — my local pub in James Bay — need to be particularly good. And yet, miraculously, they are exceptional.

Even when they come out of a bag in the freezer, chicken strips are amazing. Nobody has explored this topic better than Helen Rosner, if you haven’t read her essay on chicken tenders please go read it. A bit of the core sentiment:

They’re perfect in flavor, perfect in aroma, perfect in shape, perfect in color. They’re salty and savory, crisp and juicy, easy to eat with the hands but absolutely okay to go at with a knife and fork. Their ubiquity on kids’ menus isn’t a mark against their perfection, but rather proof of it: the kids’ menu is where all perfect foods live. Pizza, hot dogs, spaghetti. But king of all perfect foods is the chicken tender.

I could not agree more. Even the worst chicken tender is perfect. Which is why I say that there is no reason for The Bent Mast to put so much care into theirs; this is food for drunk people and toddlers and it is being served at a pub. It sells itself.

The chicken strips

But the care with which these are made is evident. To start with, they are definitely made fresh. They are breaded instead of battered, and the breading itself is too delicate to be industrial. It has just enough crunch, and towards the edges of the chicken strip it gets darker and crunchier. It looks the way that a cutlet would if you were making it at home, which I suppose is essentially what this is.

In a few places, the breading comes slightly away from the chicken, with a slight pocket of steam that releases when you bite in. This is not a flaw, but a comforting reminder that someone actually made this rather than just chucking it into a frier.

The chicken itself is never the main event in a chicken strip, but it’s good here. It’s perfectly cooked and juicy, and not at all dry or mealy the way that some chicken strips can be.

I ordered mine with sweet potato fries instead of regular fries (a swap I will usually make when offered), and with barbecue sauce instead of plum sauce (I always want barbecue sauce). I would guess that the sweet potato fries did come out of a bag, and I wouldn’t want them any other way.

I live just a few blocks away from The Bent Mast, but I am not a regular. Whenever I come in, I’m always like, “I should come here more often — this place is great!” It is cozy without feeling like it’s trying to be cozy. There are paintings of schooners on the wall in mismatched frames that do not feel “curated” or “edited” — they’re just there because this is a pub in a seaside village. Last night I was dining solo, and while I ate my chicken strips there a rowdy karaoke room raged upstairs. The sound of at least a dozen people shout-singing “Mr. Brightside” spilled down the wide Victorian staircase and into the main room of the pub. It didn’t seem like anyone was bothered; I certainly wasn’t. A perfect soundtrack for a perfect food.