Off the Map: Everything Really Is Bigger in Texas

Fried Chicken -- Babe's Chicken Dinner House, Burleson, TX

Babe's Chicken Dinner House

Whoever coined the term about everything being bigger in Texas clearly did so while dining at Babe's Chicken Dinner House.

Maybe This Is Texas's Ploy to Keep Us from Leaving

Vodka and her college roommates, Diet Coke and Whiskey Sour, are at the Burleson location to sample Melissa D'Arabian's chosen FRIED CHICKEN favorite from Best Thing I Ever Ate.

"Comfortable" Seating Options

Only when we arrive at 4:30pm, expecting a quick munch on a chicken leg before heading back to the stables of the Fort Worth stockyards, we find a crowd gathered outside for a 20-minute wait.

Could You Move This Along? We Have a Rodeo to Get To

Settling atop some wagon wheels, we watch customer after customer emerge from the joint clutching a single, transparent plastic bag.

We've Seen Many To-Go Containers in Our Lives, but Never Anything Quite Like This

"What are they all carrying?" Whiskey Sour asks.

"Chicken?" Vodka guesses, perplexed by not only the proliferation of leftovers, but also by their chosen receptacle.

But As We Will Soon Learn, These Bags Are Not the Most Perplexing Aspect Of Babe's Chicken House

However, within mere moments of being led to our table inside the Epcot-like decor of Babe's, the reason behind such doggie bags becomes clear: we are about to be drowned in food.

A Whole Restaurant Full of Excessive Chicken Eaters

Our waitress explains that our table is about to be laden down with salad, biscuits, corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, and gravy, along with our desired meat: fried chicken, chicken fingers, smoked chicken, or chicken-fried steak.

In Other Words, We're Never Getting Out of Here

Vodka chooses the fried chicken, believing she is speaking for the entire table, since all of the dishes are to be served family-style.

Plus, This Would Certainly Fill All Three of Us, No?

"You all want fried chicken?" the waitress asks.

Hold up -- we EACH choose our own meat?! Please just bring us the to-go Ziplocs now.

Or We Can All Eat Our Own Half Chicken.... That Works, Too

Chicken Fingers? More Like Chicken Hands

Vodka sticks with the fried chicken, while Diet Coke goes for the smoked chicken, and Whiskey Sour, the chicken fingers.

Pace Yourselves, Everyone

And before the waitress has so much as walked away, a heaping bowl of salad and plate of biscuits gets placed before us.

Olive Garden, Southern Edition

The salad is surprisingly flavorful, being that it resembles little more than romaine tossed in dressing. And the biscuits are some of the lightest and fluffiest we have ever encountered.

In Other Words, We Polished Them Off in Five Minutes Flat

Not to be outdone, we are soon graced with our own chickens in various forms of preparation, and we barely even know where to begin.

And This Was Only Round One

While she has no desire to actually prove this theory, Vodka believes that of all the Best Thing I Ever Ate episodes, she has sampled the most dishes from the FRIED CHICKEN one, and Babe's variety is one of the best.

Though to Be Fair, It's Hard to Find a Fried Chicken We Won't Enjoy

Incredibly crispy on the outside and moist and juicy on the inside, it is the ideal stereotype of how fried chicken should be executed.

And Special Shout-Out to the Mashed Potatoes

Diet Coke and Whiskey Sour find their choices to be similarly pleasant, as are the proliferation of sides, for which the waiters at Babe's keep insisting we should accept refills.

No, No, Please No More!

Indeed, a solid fifteen minutes into our meal, our only show of progress is a single bare chicken bone beside Vodka's plate, and we begin waving the white flag -- or in this case, the plastic leftover bags.

A Pitiful Display

By the time we roll out of Babe's, the crowd outside has quadrupled in size, proving that the people of Burleson seem to value chicken more than they do booze during their Saturday night dinners.

Have We Mentioned This Place Doesn't Serve Liquor, and Yet, NO VACANCY

And as our own chicken gets tucked away in our carry-on luggage, to be consumed immediately upon reentries into our homelands, Dallas hammers home the point that even upon leaving its borders, the state's vastness extends so widely that you can never quite leave Texas behind.

Babe's Chicken Dinner House's Fried Chicken: 4 stars