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• Hollyhock Hill

Family style white chicken dinner, with mashed potatoes and veggies at Hollyhock Hill. (Danese Kenon for The Star)

Peppermint ice cream, topped with chocolate sauce, is among the favorite desserts served at Hollyhock Hill. (Danese Kenon for The Star)

Family style chicken dinner, with mashed potatoes and vegetables, is a large part of Hollyhock Hill's reputation. (Danese Kenon for The Star)

Hollyhock Hill has been a Far-Northside staple since 1929, and while our family hasn't been visiting that long, it has become a tradition of ours to dine at this farmhouse-style restaurant during the holiday seaso

So on what turned out to be the weekend of the first major winter snowfall, we all piled in cars and headed to College Avenue to once again sample the down-home cooking.

We aren't the only ones to make a regular pilgrimage here. Owners Jay and Barb Snyder, say the eatery has hosted visitors from all 50 states and several countries.

The menu includes New York sirloin, tenderloins, gulf shrimp, orange roughy and broiled haddock, but most folks show up here for Hollyhock's classic "country-style fried-chicken dinner" ($17.95). Our party was no different; we all ordered the poultry, paying $2 extra per person for an all-white-meat selectio

Eating at Hollyhock is a lot like dining at the residence of a pampering grandmother or aunt, if she was ensconced in a charming white-framed country cottage.

Guests sit in one of several rooms, surrounded by homey art, lace and other accoutrements; our table featured a large Lazy Susan in the center, making it easy for the six of us to help ourselves to the parade of platters that arrived during the meal.

Winning tomato soup

First up: simple appetizers, including fresh-cut veggies (radishes, carrots, celery) served with a bowl of old-fashioned tomato soup. The soup was nicely hot and mellow, winning over even the non-tomato-soup fan (uh, that would be me) at our table.

Salads followed, a simple iceberg-lettuce-based offering already tossed in Hollyhock's signature sweet-sour dressing. (So popular is this fat-free accent that Hollyhock bottles and sells it at the restaurant.)

At this point in the meal, it's pretty easy to pat yourself on the back for your nutritional virtuousness. It's a fleeting feeling, though: Next up is the reason everyone is here, and it won't win you any Weight Watchers kudos. Hollyhock Hill's chef hand-fries generously battered chicken breasts and legs, which arrive at the table fresh from the skillet.

The catch: This chicken is fried in lard. Yep, lard. And while the diet police would arrest me for this culinary sin, Hollyhock Hill is literally the only place I will eat fried chicke

The meat is flavorful and juicy, and that fried coating is crisp and crunchy -- a perfect poultry combinatio (If you're !a better person than I, however, you can request that the chicken be fried in special oils.)

Stellar mashed potatoes

This is also about the only place I really enjoy mashed potatoes, served as a side with thick chicken gravy and butter as accompaniments. Any country grandma would be proud of the smooth, creamy, melt-in-your-mouth whipped spuds. Should you have the will power, you can limit yourself to the more healthful side options of green beans, homemade pickled beets, corn or cottage cheese.

If you have any stomach space left over after this feast, you can choose from a dessert menu of vanilla ice cream with sundae toppings, brownies, peppermint ice cream or sherbet. My fave: peppermint ice cream topped with chocolate sauce, then mixed to gooey perfection!

Hollyhock Hill has received play in national magazines and has built somewhat of a cult following.

A few parties, says Jay Snyder, have a standing reservation here every Sunday. Many others (like us) return annually for holiday dinners, making reservations a year in advance.

Even if you have to slash calories, carbs and fat in your regular meals the day before or after, it's definitely worth the splurge to start your own tradition here.

Taste Test

Appetizers:
Assorted cut vegetables.
Tomato soup.

Salad:
House salad with sweet-sour dressing.

Entrees:
Country-style all-white-meat chicken dinner, $19.95 per person (includes appetizers, salad, sides and desserts, along with coffee and hot or iced tea).

Sides:
Green beans.
Mashed potatoes with gravy.
Cottage cheese.
Pickled beets.

Dessert:
Peppermint ice cream with chocolate sauce.

-- By Julie Cope Saetre / indy.com correspondent