Or #fingerlickinggood

Do dominatrixes like fried chicken? It’s not the start of a joke, it’s a question I have, as yet, been unable to answer.

“Researching” for this week’s episode of Fiskal Policy I thought I’d ask several dominatrixes who call themselves Miss Millie on Twitter whether they like Miss Millie’s fried chicken.

Disappointingly there seem to be only two on Twitter and neither replied so I had to widen it to people who work on OnlyFans.

My message made one woman hungry but she’d never heard of Miss Millie’s and the others were perhaps too busy with another type of finger licking goodness.

They are all missing out because Miss Millie’s has been my fried chicken place of choice since living in Cardiff in 2004.

After walking two friends home to their place near City Road after a night out I’d stop in for a couple of pieces. And when I had my haircut nearby I’d accidentally make it near lunchtime so I could chow down on some deliciously not too good for me poultry.

I’ve only been back to Cardiff once since then but I made sure to revisit the establishment and begged them to give me a paper hat.

Times have changed since then though and when the place shut down in 2018 I wondered whether I should get the train to the next nearest Miss Millie’s to my London flat (in not very convenient Bristol) for dinner.

They then opened a shop in Billericay last year and then followed this up with a restaurant in Walthamstow, East London.

I say restaurant rather than chicken shop because it is definitely the fanciest chicken shop I’ve ever been to.

It has a red and white clean diner feel with enough tables for quite a few patrons, some murals which take into account the local history of the area, and some fancy pants lights.

Being so spacious, instead of the traditional three of four seats in a shop window near the counter, it seems like the kind of place you could come with a family and sit awhile rather than having to rush out.

I might send the Chicken Connoisseur for a second opinion – and to see if the wings and fillet burgers are any good.

Personally I was very impressed with the chips, especially as a long time ago Miss Millie’s had a loose association with KFC, which – as everyone knows – has always had awful fries.

The ones I had were full of potato without the airy bit you sometimes get in fast food places and had a nice crunch to them.

Also, during my noonish visit, they were freshly cooked too so were hot and tasted good when dipped in the tomato sauce (although in an ideal world it would be a better brand of ketchup than Harrisons – and offering barbecue sauce would have been a nice thing to do).

Crucially, the chicken was very good too and reminded me why I remember it so fondly from Cardiff in 2004-5.

The pieces in my two piece meal (a drumstick and one of those bits of fried chicken where you really don’t know which bit of the creature it started out as) were juicy and flavourful and encased in a crunchy but not too crunchy coating with a slightly peppery taste to it.

The only thing letting the meal down was the hashbrowns which were fried to the extent they had a crispy rim but were just too soft in the middle to have any kind of satisfactory taste. They definitely could have done with an extra minute or two in the fryer.

But I guess most people don’t go to a fried chicken shop for the hash browns.

I’m someone who travelled across state lines to get a sandwich while on a recent holiday so you won’t be surprised to hear me recommend everyone travelling to Walthamstow to visit this place.

But, in truth, with the cost of fuel these days it is probably not worth trekking too far just for two pieces of chicken.

Make it a meal though, while remembering to avoid the hashbrowns, and put it in as the food stop on an East 17 nostalgia tour then I think you’ve got the makings of a poptastic day out.

Stay safe for another week!