Turbo Chicken
5252 Portage Road, Suite BDecember gets crazy. We go from Kalamazoo Kick-Off Synchronized Skating Competition to B’s birthday to Thanksgiving to the Holiday Ice Review to Christmas.
J typically has some long nights at her work during this time too so I always hold back a few of my vacation days in case I need to take some time off to get the kids where they need to go at night.
That happened twice this past week. Holiday Ice Revue practices were on Monday and Wednesday and J needed to be at work late both of those nights…..so I took the day off.
Monday, I picked L up from school and dropped her off at Wings Event Center then went back home to wait for B to get off the bus. Once he was home, I got him packed up and we headed back towards WEC. I had gotten L something to eat from Taco Bell before dropping her off so I just had B and I to worry about.
I knew B wanted Jimmy Johns so that was easy enough as there is one right near Wings. I didn’t want Jimmy Johns though. There’s something a little better not too far out of the way.
Turbo Chicken has been in Portage for about four years but recently, they moved down the road a little bit opening up a new spot on Portage Road near Bird Street just north of the entrance to the Kalamazoo-Battle Creek International Airport. There is still some outside work being done on the new space which shares the building with a Subway but the restaurant is open and there is a sign out by the road so you can find it.
The restaurant is a counter service fried chicken sandwich joint with a couple of other options including burgers and shakes but chicken is the star of the show here.
The big difference between this new location and the old room is seating. There was no seating at the shop down the street. Now, there’s a fairly big dining room. There were a couple of times at the old location that I would just stand outside in the parking lot and use the hood of my car as a table. That’s not something I’m going to have to do anymore.
I actually put my order in online so I just had to run in and pick it up. My plan was to grab B’s sandwich from Jimmy Johns and then we’d just head to the rink and eat. I needed to get some things to L anyway while she had a little bit of a break.
My plan was just to order the Turbo Sandwich and make it Nashy (Nashville hot) but when I went to online ordering, there was a special that grabbed my attention and I couldn’t pass that up.
I ordered the sandwich they’re calling Rudolph’s Revenge. This sandwich dips the fried (or grilled) chicken in to a Nashy Reaper Hot sauce. It’s then topped with toasted rosemary whipped goat cheese, pickled red onion (I left this off), arugula, honey, and bacon. When I picked the sandwich up, the guy putting it together said “I hope you like things hot.” It kind of scared me for a minute wondering if I had made a mistake so I proceeded with caution on the first bite. It was not overwhelmingly spicy but did have a delicious peppery kick to it. Exactly what I was looking for. The honey and goat cheese helped balance out the spiciness of the chicken. I was afraid I was going to be sitting at the arena with tears coming out of my eyes from the heat but that was not the case. There’s a lot of heat in it but not so much it destroys the tastebuds.
I ordered a side of bleu cheese to go with the sandwich just in case I needed to cool it down. I really didn’t need to but since I had it, I dipped some of the sandwich in to. It just added a nice tangy coolness to the sandwich.
All I got was the sandwich because they do Tots as the side item and as many time as I’ve tried, I’m just not a tots guy. I’d really prefer fries.
The cost for just the sandwich and a side of bleu cheese was right around $13.
I’ve always loved Turbo Chicken and ate at the old location many times. Food wise, this is the same place. They’ve just added on a dining a room and a little more space. It’s still a place that’s well worth your time to head to Portage for.
SW Michigan Dining 