Rowley Farmhouse Ales serves an outsize offering on a big, rich, buttery biscuit with Old Windmill Dairy cheddar blended in for good measure. The chicken is chunkily thick — the most generous of all the sandwiches we tried.

sandwiches — one a spin on the club, and another putting the classic Buffalo wings combo between pieces of bread. Both are easily shared and can be ordered in full and half sizes (Boxcar and Caboose, respectively). The bread is something of a drawback here — the chicken and its accompaniments get lost amid the hefty puffy rolls. The fried chicken itself is exemplary: tender and juicy, with a respectable crust your Southern grandma would approve of. The Carboni Club’s pairing with Beeler’s bacon, lettuce, tomato, Swiss cheese, and a black-pepper aioli makes classic sense, though the side of brown Guinness gravy was mystifying. The Buffalo sandwich — with its zingy hot sauce and tangy blue cheese — stands up to the bread better, although the sauce masks the chicken’s beautiful crust.

There’s a Buffalo chicken sandwich at Second Street Brewery (1814 Second St., 505-982-3030; 1607 Paseo de Peralta, 505-989-3278), too. The classic zesty sauce eliminates the chicken’s crunch, and here the meat had been sliced or pounded, leaving only a thin layer of it beneath the crust (although let’s be honest: the whole Buffalo experience is only partly about chicken anyway). The flavor of this sandwich is solid — the sauce is eye-opening but not overly spicy, the blue cheese noticeable but not overpowering, and the menu-specified caper mayo is only detectable in a vague but pleasant pickly way. This ultimately becomes yet another untidy sandwich, but that’s fine as long as you have plenty of napkins on hand.

The spicy fried chicken sandwich at Shake Foundation (631 Cerrillos Road, 505-988-8992) is easily one of the messiest things I’ve ever eaten. The chicken is nicely breaded, with just a hint of peppery spice, and while the crust starts off relatively crisp, the toppings — a seriously peppy green chile mayo and thick and zingy house-brined pickles — quickly turn it soggy. The buttery-soft bun is too small for the generous hunk of bird, and once the iceberg lettuce starts to slip, the sandwich simply begins to slide apart. Adding the guacamole and Jack cheese recommended by the dude manning the register was just an unnecessary gilding of the lily.

Every sandwich we tried had its merits and will scratch your chicken-sandwich itch, but a few clearly rose to the top. The buttermilk fried chicken sandwich at Betterday Dine-In (907 W. Alameda St., 505-428-0876) is a sizeable serving, the respectably crusted, juicy, and tender meat overflowing its bun, giving you the chance to nibble on the surplus and appreciate its simple savory goodness. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts here, the delicious entirety distinguished by some seriously caliente green chile, a rich and cooling slick of mayonnaise, frilly green lettuce, and a gorgeous slab of ruby-ripe tomato.

Rowley Farmhouse Ales (1405 Maclovia St., 505-428-0719) serves another outsize offering, in this case on a big, rich, buttery biscuit with Old Windmill Dairy cheddar blended in for good measure. The chicken is chunkily thick — the most generous of all the sandwiches we tried — and easy to share (or save half for later and feed yourself well a second time). Biscuit sandwiches are tricky, though. The very thing that makes the biscuit superior — its tenderness — can manifest as a shortcoming (albeit a delicious one), beginning to crumble apart after a bite or two, tumbling onto the silver sheet pan that serves as your plate. Snatch up those bites, though, particularly if the biscuit is dabbed with the horseradish crema, which creates a tangy contrast for each mouthful of juicy chicken.

Late last year, Arable in Eldorado (7 Avenida Vista Grande, 505-303-3816) impressed this ex-pat Southerner with a fried chicken sandwich on a very respectable drop-style biscuit. It’s not on the current menu, but I’ll be keeping a watchful eye out for its reappearance — and you should, too. The menu changes at the Street Food Institute food truck (street foodinstitute.org), but once upon a time (meaning roughly two years ago), they served a fried chicken sandwich that featured tender buttermilkbrined meat in a nubbly cornmeal crust topped with an Old Bay-tinged rémoulade. Perhaps it’ll make a comeback. And while unless you live in Madrid, The Hollar (2489 NM-14, 505-471-4821) isn’t exactly a convenient spot to stop for a quick lunch or dinner, chef Josh Novak has a real gift for frying things. The current menu includes two biscuits served with crispy chicken and prosciutto — not exactly a sandwich, but you sure could make it one.