Egg.

Three years ago, Egg began life as a breakfast spot, one of those no-nonsense joints that throw the doors open at seven, to feed and caffeinate bespectacled, Times-clutching L.L. Bean types, and don't close them until the post-meridiem hours, after the bedraggled, head-clutching Jim Beam types are all tended to. The in-between consists, mainly, of pancakes the size of pizzas. Egg's breakfast still prevails in Williamsburg--trust the line--but after Sparky's, a hot-dog palace that previously controlled the space's evening rights, opted to concentrate on its East Village outlet, Egg got hold of the night shift. It's a soft hold, the way one might grab, say, an egg. Three times a week, a child-size chalkboard appears on the sidewalk, indicating that, for a few hours, Egg will dim the lights and cook up a handful of dishes.

Egg's owner, George Weld, is a sub-Mason-Dixon Line kind of guy (he was raised in Virginia and South Carolina, the son of a minister), and, if only as an exercise in nostalgia, his young kitchen offers a bang-up excuse to eat bad. "Can you really go wrong with salt, fat, and grease?" a diner commented the other night. Most of that salt, fat, and grease goes into Weld's fried chicken, a recipe owed--and what regional dish ...