Clem's Chicken Shop, Newtown
After giving up KFC a few years ago, there’s only one place I go to for Western-style fried chicken – Clem’s Chicken Shop.
Clem’s is a Newtown institution much like Istanbul on King. It’s the perfect place to go for the post piss-up carb and grease fest.
Clem’s menu board. They have both BBQ and fried chicken. I’ve heard that the BBQ chicken is quite good but I’m there for one thing and one thing only.
It’s… beautiful.
If you want to be fancy about it I suppose you can get some vegetables.
My dinner pack – 3 pieces fried chicken with a mountain of chips. Where do I even start describing how good this is? It’s like KFC, but 10,000x better and probably laced with heroin or some shit, not that it needs any. Not with that tasty, crispy chicken skin with just the right amount of fat that cracks so delightfully between your teeth. Everytime I’ve been here the chicken and chips have been freshly fried and piping hot. No lukewarm dry chicken for Clem’s clientele.
You see, Clem cares.
If there’s one thing you never have to worry about here, it’s the portion sizes. My dinner pack costs $9.60 and will comfortably feed two (you know, if you don’t mind sharing). Large chips cost $2.50 and is the approximate size of a 3 month old baby – wow I seriously just associated babies with fried food in one sentence, I apologise.
There’s only one thing I find slightly distressing about Clem’s.
What is this? Why is it with the vegetables? I swear to god that everytime I come here it looks EXACTLY like this. With the same amount of… stuff taken out. The world is a strange and confusing place.
Afterwards my friends and I wandered down to Civic to grab a movie to watch while waiting for all the food to digest. I found this:
And I thought FUCK. YEAH. I mean check out that cover. A motherfucking giant shark attacking a motherfucking plane. How can this NOT be good?
I found out later that in fact it isn’t good. Like, bad. Like, a steaming pile of shit (redeemed only by that scene where the shark attacks a plane). It’s so cheaply made they had to recycle the 5-minute CGI scenes they have throughout the movie, especially the showdown at the end. I mean seriously guys you can’t use the 5 minutes for an 85 minute movie. Actually I think they did realise that because there wasn’t nearly enough shark/octopus action. Wtf at the stock underwater scenes that they pinched off National Geographic docos. Also wtf at the glowing pheromones and beakers filled with a rainbow of colours, it’s like they let loose school leavers in the lab with a crate of alcopop. Also what the FUCK at the sex scene so awkward I was prepared to take a vow of celibacy. I was experiencing so much second hand embarrassment at the “acting” that I nearly stopped the film halfway. But no, I watched the entire thing. It had so much potential, and I was let down.
Wait, this is a food blog.
Clem’s Chicken Shop
210 King St., Newtown
PS: Fun continuity error in Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus: In the first scene with Emma McNeil, take a close look at bits where she’s pressing the buttons on the submarine console and when they cutaway to her face – you’ll notice that she has black nailpolish in the button scene but not others. I’m suspecting that the button bits are taken off another movie and spliced in.
Posted under Dinner, Sydney, Takeaway, Trashtastic | Leave a comment: 5 Comments | RSS
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
The multicoloured stuff is probably cheapo trifle. It’s layered, bottom to top, sponge cake, some creamy mixture of cream and stuff, then it looks like sponge and creamy mix again, then various jelly (jello to any Americans reading) flavours dolloped on top. It’s.. not my kinda thing. I know people who like it though..
I’m like a moth to a flame. I might get it next time I’m there.
I live in Brisbane (Aus) and I recently had a holiday in sydney for 2 weeks and i dropped in to clems fried chicken and it was AWESOME!! it is waaaaayyy better than kfc.. hot chips, chicken salt, gravy and fried chicken HELL YEAH!! the gravy is soooo nice too. and the people there were sooo nice everytime i went in there and it is all so reasonably priced. i wish we had clems in brisbane. it should grow and be all over the country because its friggin delicious. <3
If there was ever a reason to move back to Sydney, it would be for Clem’s. Absolutely craps all over KFC and when you ask for a 5-piece box, expect to find 6 or even 7 in your box. These guys know how to keeo their customers happy. Never tried the BBQ, but may have to on my next visit.
@Taylor & @Mike – See, when I mention Clem’s not everyone knows it, but the ones who do LOVE it as evidenced by your comments. Clem’s bring people together.