Root beer and fried chicken and waffles

I’m always on the lookout for interesting matches with alcohol-free drinks and this just inched it over a really good cider pairing at the Hang Fire Southern Kitchen yesterday.

The girls at Hang Fire were the winners of the street food category in last year's BBC Food & Farming awards and have since powered ahead, publishing a book (The Hang Fire Cookbook) and opening their own restaurant in Barry on the outskirts of Cardiff where they serve their outrageously good southern states-style barbecue food (of which more to come).

Both drinks came from fellow BBC Food awards winners: the root beer from Square Root Soda Works in Hackney which won the drinks award last year for its handmade sodas, is what used to be called sasparilla - a slightly medicinal tasting sweetish cola-style drink made from sasparilla root, burdock and licorice. Not usually my kind of thing but it was absolutely spot on with my dish of deep-fried wood-smoked chicken (whoa!) with waffles, creamy black and white pepper gravy and sweet potato fries.

The other terrific match was the ‘frickles (aka’ deep-fried pickles. NB this place is not a temple to clean eating!) and another Beeb award-winner, Andy Hallet’s rich flavourful Hallets Real Cider. Honestly, if you pop in just for that it’s worth the detour.

Fried chicken with Kung Fu Girl Columbia Valley Riesling

It’s not that often you find a wine that’s perfectly suited to every dish you throw at it but The Lockhart’s well chosen Kung Fu Girl riesling sailed right through our lunch there last week

The Lockhart serves southern US specialities such as catfish goujons, gumbo and shrimp and grits alongside some great deep-fried chicken. There’s also their amazing cornbread and honey butter so you have a little bit of spice and quite a lot of sweetness to contend with.

Kung Fu Girl riesling is made by the talented and quirky Charles Smith - a former rock band manager who drives a large Rolls Royce round the sleepy town of Walla Walla where he's based in Washington State. It’s a pretty floral off-dry wine that turns out to be a perfect pairing with this style of food. I’d also drink it with Asian cuisine - it’s a really affordable, versatile restaurant wine.

In the UK you can buy the current 2013 vintage from slurp.co.uk for £10.95 and £11.50 from winedirect.co.uk

You can see my earlier review of The Lockhart here.