local dining

Friday, October 13, 2000

Hickory Street Café known for its chicken salad, zucchini bread

By Glenn Dromgoole
Special to the Reporter-News

Hickory Street Café serves what is absolutely the best chicken salad I’ve ever eaten.

It’s not like most chicken salad, which sometimes tends to be heavy on the salad and light on the chicken. The chicken salad at Hickory Street Café consists of chunks of white meat caressed (not drenched) with the café’s top-secret seasoning and garnished with red seedless grapes and cashews. The salad is served with two slices of Hickory Street’s famous zucchini bread, which is more like cake than bread.

Chicken salad is the restaurant’s signature dish, far and away the most popular item on the menu, and at $5.95 truly one of the culinary delights of Abilene. You can also get a chicken salad sandwich with potato sticks and pasta salad for the same price.

Running a respectable second in popularity is the salad sampler, which includes a smaller helping of chicken salad, a pasta salad with chicken, and a green salad. It also comes with two slices of zucchini cake — I mean bread — and is $5.95.

Hickory Street Cafe, at Hickory and North 7th, occupies the bottom floor of a large two-story house in the historic Hickory Street district. Owner Tammy Watts personally oversees both the first floor restaurant and the second floor gift shop. The entire restaurant is non-smoking.

The café tends to be more popular with women than men, with an emphasis on quiche, sandwiches, salads and homemade soups. But, guys, even though it’s not an all-you-can-eat buffet and there isn’t a chicken fried steak in sight, the servings are sufficient for all but the heartiest of appetites.

And if the sausage and green chili quiche ($5.25 for one-fourth of a pie) or the croissant sandwich with turkey, Swiss cheese and avocado ($5.25) or the hot crab served on an open-faced English muffin ($6.25) aren’t filling enough, you can always top off the meal with a generous serving of dessert.

I recommend the chocolate Kahlua Bundt cake topped with whipped cream, or the cheesecake ($2.50 for a full slice, $1.25 for a sliver). The chocolate decadence (a cross between a brownie and fudge with whipped cream) and the double chocolate mousse cheesecake are other popular desserts. They are also $2.50 a slice but aren’t sold by the sliver.

Hickory Street Café offers a full take-out menu and will prepare a whole quiche or whole chocolate Kahlua cake ($13 each) with 24 hours notice. You can get a pint of chicken salad for $9 and a loaf of zucchini bread (which makes a nice remembrance gift) for $4.50.

The restaurant features a different homemade soup every day, with Wisconsin cheese on Mon-day and potato soup on Wednes-day and Friday. The Tuesday and Thursday selections vary among broccoli Parmesan, creamy broccoli, chicken enchilada and chicken vegetable. Soup is $2.25 a cup or $3.25 a bowl.

The children’s menu includes bologna and cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with fruit cup and potato sticks, for $2.95.

Glenn Dromgoole is an Abilene author. For previous restaurant reviews and a complete directory of Abilene restaurants, visit www.bigcountrydining.com.

IF YOU GO ...

Hickory Street Café

644 Hickory

Hickory Street Café is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Reservations are accepted for groups of six or more. Rooms can be reserved for parties of 15 to 36. Call 675-0465.

Lunch runs around $8-9 a person, including drink (try the raspberry iced tea), tax and tip, or about $9-10 a person with a sliver of dessert. Credit cards and checks are accepted.