More about Chicken Annie and her storied history a bit later. Suffice it to say I was in Pittsburg, Kansas, specifically to eat a lot of fried chicken for reasons relating to this whole “food canon” project. Chicken Annie’s Original is one of three fried chicken restaurants in the area. By “in the area” I mean, you can reach all three in less than ten minutes of driving. And they’re all famous across the country. Can you say rivalry? Yes. We’ll get to the other two places shortly and the chicken here too. But Chicken Annie’s boasts another menu item that’s considered canon worthy by many: the onion rings. What to say? I dig onion rings, though once upon a time I didn’t. These are of the very thinly sliced variety, which I prefer to the thicker ones. Some people have taken to calling onion rings this stringy “onion straws,” which is fair. The breading is good, the onion is probably a little muted for some, but I liked these quite a bit. I would not say that they’re particularly great. They’re fine. I’ve had onion rings this good plenty of times though. I wouldn’t call this great food or essential food. Just solid. Whatever. 2 ½ stars.
tl;dr – thinly sliced onion rings with copious breading; you can get ‘em this good a lot of places. 2 ½ stars.