A week or so back I was over at Smoqued in Nottingham Street Food Club checking out their loaded fries and a Maple Smoked Pork Belly Bun (read more here). Spoiler alert they were pretty goddam good.

I was talking to the chaps from Secret Burger Club next door about just how good those loaded fries were and they were telling me that I had to try the “Buttermilk Fried Chicken Box” which they loved, so well that meant I was definitely going to be back to check that out 🙂

Buttermilk Fried Chicken Box

This was a great recommendation! The menu board at Smoqued describes this (more or less) as ‘ Buttermilk Fried Chicken in a box with a citrus slaw, chipotle mayo, gochujang & sesame sauce, pink pickle and fries for £8.’

So first things first, I was looking down at the box thinking that it was just some fried chicken on a pile of slaw, I was to be quite wrong. The Buttermilk fried chicken is great! Crunchy coating, juicy moist tender chicken, and a lovely satisfying crisp bite as you chow into a piece.

As you dig down into the box under that chicken you start to find piles of crisp thin cut fries, and they are good fries too, just like those loaded ones that I raved about last time (lets be honest they actually are the same fries just in a different costume)

The joy though of this whole box is not just the chicken and the chips, no Sir it is the way that all the other stuff adds layers of flavours that keeps you digging down and deep into the container scraping every last bite and bit of slaw up

The combinations of the citrus slaw, the chipotle mayo, and that gochujang & sesame sauce are, to coin a phrase,the dogs bollocks.

Yes SBC chaps, I thank you both, you were correct 🙂

The Cheef Burger

A week later and I was happily sitting on a bench outside Neonraptor brewery down in Sneinton Market when I received a tag from the TheGastronome on Instagram about a secret menu item that Smoqued were serving up. Again what is a man to do?

I finished my pint and headed up to the Nottingham Street Food Club to check out what was going on! 🙂

The Cheef

So apparantly what we had here was a hybrid of the Buttermilk Chicken from the basket and their Beef rib that they had on their Tacos that weekend all packed inside a brioche bun

@eatabix had posted on insta “The cheef burger. Fried chicken & Beef rib with lime and mint slaw and a lemongrass chilli sauce! A special we’ve got on today that isn’t in the menu! Get down and ask us for a cheef burger! “

I did just that and I was the first one to ask on that day, I felt a little bit blessed and a little bit smug 🙂

It was a bit of a mess, but it was seriously tasty! Ok so the buttermilk chicken was always going to be a winner, but the topping of beef rib that should have been like anti matter trying to dive back into it’s taco was actually an excellent bedfellow inside that bun.

What I liked the most though was that all of their great Smoqued flavours married well once again and I was bowled over with that lemongrass chilli sauce.

The truth is that this should not have worked in any way shape or form, but the honest truth was that this was a great idea and certainly worked however you wish to define that.

I love secret menu items just keep tagging me and I will be all over it

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They are a Fixture at The Nottingham Street Food Club where they are one of the residents.