As a fat boy from Houston, Texas living in New York for the past decade I've always missed my favorite foods from back home. As they say, the three main food groups of Texas are BBQ, Tex-Mex and Chicken Fried Steak. While New York actually has a lot of good BBQ restaurants to offer and the fact that there is no such thing as Tex-Mex food outside the great state of Texas(although there is plenty of good Mexican food here), that leaves me to my mission on Chicken Fried Steak(CFS). The mission to find all the places serving Chicken Fried Steak in New York and rate them with my personal set of criteria of which I feel are crucial in creating the perfect Chicken Fried Steak. These criteria can be broken down into the following categories:

• Crust - Extremely crucial to the perfect CFS. The crust should flakey NOT crunchy.
  
• Thickness - Also very important, the steak can't be too thick. 1/4" to 3/8" is ideal.
  
• Gravy - Keep it simple and original. Don't try and get fancy and mess up a good thing.
  
• Cookedness(my own word) - A good CFS should still be juicy on the inside, NOT burnt to a crisp.
  

and just to add to the list are:

• Sides - Being that CFS is about as southern as it gets, why not enjoy it with some mash potatoes, mac'n cheese or some grits while you're at it.
  
• Service - Southern food should naturally be accompanied with southern hospitality even when in New York City.

Crust

This is what I call the "Cunchy to Flakey Meter". Since I have the crust as first on my list of criteria in making the perfect Chicken Fried Steak I feel it is important to explain how it should be prepared. When eating alot of these NYC Chicken Fried Steaks I couldnt help feel they were being deep fried because they were burnt to a crisp on the inside and the crust was so hard and crunchy. A real Chicken Fried Steak should be pan fried and flipped for the perfectly cooked and flakey crust. NOT crunchy!


This diagram shows where on the crunchy to flakey side your crust should be.