Del Rhea's Chicken Basket Highlighted on Food Network

Del Rhea's Chicken Basket located on historic Route 66 in Willowbrook, IL was highlighted on The Food Network's, "Diners Drive-Ins and Dives".

I've been eating her since the seventies (my Dad first visited in the late 30's) and always enjoyed the fried chicken. After watching this show, I'm wondering why I never tried the mac & cheese. It sure looked good.

Here's a link to a video of the segment:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n50gUqkngCg

Ill have to see if I can find this episode, I DVR D,D &D since I rarely stay up late enough to watch them when they run the first time.

As for Del Rheas & my opinion on what they do, a decent chicken place, perhaps a little better than White Fence Farm in my experience.

I have been to Del Rheas quite a few times since I only work a few minutes away. I think the lunch buffet is a great bargain, and their chicken and dumpling soup is good. I do enjoy their bar for a few drinks.

jimswside wrote:Ill have to see if I can find this episode, I DVR D,D &D since I rarely stay up late enough to watch them when they run the first time.

As for Del Rheas & my opinion on what they do, a decent chicken place, perhaps a little better than White Fence Farm in my experience.

I have been to Del Rheas quite a few times since I only work a few minutes away. I think the lunch buffet is a great bargain, and their chicken and dumpling soup is good. I do enjoy their bar for a few drinks.

It looks like you'll need to wait 'til 2/27 for the rerun - http://www.foodnetwork.com/diners-drive ... index.html

Yeah, I will try to catch a rerun, too, for grins. I actually prefer White Fence for chicken, but I do think the chicken dumpling soup and particularly the atmosphere are great at Dell Rhea's. The lunch buffet is okay, including that soup, and a decent chicken gravy.

Guy is increasingly having the same effect on me as Rachel Ray, and I can only watch his shows so long as someone else is speaking - once he starts burbling, I am forced to change the channel. So freaking perky, and always gushing in exactly the same way. And let's face it, you could switch the two of them between her travel/eating show and his and continue on with each show with the same script and all. In fact, it makes me wonder, is it possible Guy is really just Rachel dressed as a guy and making her voice deeper??? I wonder.

We ate at Del Rhea's Chicken Basket for dinner yesterday. The chicken dumpling soup was very good (I assume that the nice chicken stock is house-made).

While Guy Fieri may have loved the wings, we didn't find them all that special - they were deep fried and did not come with much Buffalo sauce; we recently enjoyed Buffalo wings at Jake Melnick's in River North which were far superior to these. I like the deep fried chicken gizzards - very tasty.

My wife's "Ditka" pork chop was double cut and quite good. My fried chicken was very good but not knock-you-socks off great. The chicken parts were breaded rather than batter-dipped and the chicken itself was juicy; nevertheless, it didn't meet my (inflated?) expectations. I prefer the fried chicken at Chalkboard, which is still the best that I've had in this area.