Tori’s Place

I have been on the hunt for great fried chicken in Sacramento, and this journey has led me to Tori’s Place in Del Paso Heights. The restaurant can be easy to miss as it really doesn’t have any sort of signage facing the street it’s on. All you really see is a small sandwich board written in chalk that tells you that Tori’s is there. It’s certainly a humble spot.

The restaurant itself is actually very interesting. The ‘inside’ of the restaurant is basically an addition to the building. It looks like Tori’s was initially a place where you walked up to a window to order (like you would at a food truck). The folks over at Tori’s have buitl an indoor area around the window and added seating and lighting for a more dine-in feel. To order, you still go to the window, but you can wait in the now covered area to avoid the hot sun or wet rain that might be going on that day.

The menu at Tori’s is full of Southern comfort food. Apparently, the most famous item to get here is the gumbo. In fact, the customer in front of me in line today was getting just that. Tori’s even claims that it is their most famous item. I was there for the fried chicken, but the gumbo is intriguing and I will certainly make a return trip for it.

For now, I went and tried the fried chicken. The combo they offer comes with three pieces of chicken - a leg, a thigh, and a wing. Be prepared to wait a while after you order as they make the food fresh to order. My fried chicken combo took about 15 minutes after I ordered to be done. Though I usually like my food to get to me faster, I realized that the people here at Tori’s do things more deliberately, and they take their time. And that’s great because I know that the food is fresh and not just something they popped out of a microwave.

The absolute best thing about the fried chicken is the skin. You can really see all the herbs and spices they used on it. The skin is crispy, but not overly so. It has a light texture with a balanced flavor. This chicken skin is seriously one of the very best I’ve ever had. It has great flavor. This is the kind of flavor profile that KFC wishes they had. KFC might be known for their secret recipe, but Tori’s has them beat by a mile.

I have two small complaints about the chicken, but they’re pretty minor. One, the chicken is pretty oily when handling. When you eat it, you don’t notice it, but picking it up with your fingers gets it all over your hands. I had to use a bunch of napkins when going at it. And two, the chicken meat was plump and large, but the overall quality of the chicken meat itself was slightly underwhelming. Maybe it’s just too hard to compete with just how good the skin is.

The combo meal allows you the choice of a side to go with the main meal. I went for the mac and cheese. I’ve got to say that they do’t skimp here on the portion size. The container of mac and cheese was filled to the very top. Tori’s mac and cheese is creamy and very easy to eat. At first I thought it might be a bit on the heavy side, but I was surprised to find it tasting lighter.

Alongside the mac and cheese was a buttered hot water corn bread. I’ve never had this type of corn bread before. Turns out it’s kind of like a corn pancake. The corn bread is very large and comes as a big circle. It’s big and is a good meal top off if you’re really hungry.

In terms of service, the person at the register was very nice and friendly. I would, howver, say that you should bring some cash as it is the easiest form of payment at Tori’s. On my visit they could only take cash or Zelle. Luckily, I do still have some cold hard cash so I used that to pay for my meal. Here, cash is king!

Website: Instagram

Address: 1525 Grand Ave, Sacramento CA 95838

Rating: B

The charm at Tori’s is off the charts!