MHMMM. I sure love me some fried chicken.
Hands down the greatest fried chicken in Madison. Service wasn't great the first time but attentive the second time.
Picture yourself walking into a small looking store as the heavenly fried chicken smell wafts over to you as you're getting out of the car. You can hear nearby cars (sometimes) blasting rap music and people just sitting in their cars. You walk in and you see a ghetto counter, a ghetto menu with a Pepsi logo on it; a real hole in the wall. Just add a bootleg DVD guy organizing his collection and a crying baby in the backroom and you've pretty much experienced the beginnings of Harolds Chicken Shack.
I got a 4 piece mix and my friend got a 4 piece dark. It's fried fresh, so just because of that it's better than KFC. Don't get me wrong, I like KFC, but there was an authenticity that it lacked that Harold's totally nails. It almost woke me up like "Woah. Have I really been eating KFC all these years without having experienced this?" The skin is very crispy and the meat is nice and tender. My favorite is both the wings and the legs.
The fries are pretty decent hot, but once you neglect the fries for a few minutes (because you're so concentrated on the chicken!!) they aren't as appetizing anymore. The best thing is making a fry-chicken-hot sauce wrap with the plain bread (what else would you do with it?) -- which are downright awesome.
The bootleg DVD guy sat right behind us with his tub of marker-labelled DVDs, which was actually pretty funny. I was tempted to talk to him, but I ended up decided against it.
One thing that I don't really like is that the phone-ordering service doesn't really work. I tried calling twice but neither times have they answered. Most of the time I would just prefer to order quick and leave, but I guess it doesn't always work out for them. Oh well.
I haven't even tried any of the other things yet, can't way to try the fish next which I hear is also quite good. A MUST visit.