Ensuring that you get your grubby little hands on a fat helping of super-crisp, super-delicious, super-hot fried chicken at Tom's Home Cookin' requires planning: You need to arrive before it's all gone, which can sometimes occur long before you're even considering lunch, and you'll need to carry a stash of cash, because the joint doesn't accept credit. But the planning always pays off. The wings and things, lightly dusted with flour before their plunge in a deep-fry bath, are the color of copper when they emerge, and owners Steve Jankousky and Tom Unterwagner live by the law of simplicity, which means there's no futzing with the skin, save for a liberal one-two punch of salt and pepper.

Readers' Choice: Steuben's