Review: Momofuku Fried Chicken Dinner

As a lover of fried chicken and of all things Momofuku (Ssam Bar, Noodle Bar, Milk Bar, Momofuku Ko, you get the picture...), you can only imagine my excitement when Eric told me that he had snagged a reservation for Momofuku Noodle Bar's Fried Chicken Dinner (using an online reservation system, similar to the one for Momofuku Ko). The meal serves both Southern-style and Korean-style fried chicken, accompanied by mu shu pancakes; a big bowl of veggies including lettuce, carrots, radishes, long green peppers, shiso, and various types of basil; and four sauces: hoisin, bibim, jalapeno-garlic, and ginger-scallion. The idea is to cut the chicken from the bone and wrap it in a pancake, adding in some veggies and sauces. I fasted diligently all day in preparation for the meal, and was practically salivating just thinking of how wonderful this meal would be.

First, and most importantly, the chicken: the fried chicken is David Chang's homage to Andrew Carmellini's handiwork at Cafe Boulud, where Chef Carmellini (currently the chef at Locanda Verde) cooked his off-menu fried chicken in duck fat in a Dutch oven. Chang's meal promises two whole Bell & Evans chickens, prepared two ways. The recipe for the Southern-style triple-fried chicken, created by Momofuku Ko chef Peter Serpico, calls for a hefty dose of Old Bay seasoning and buttermilk. The Korean-style fried chicken, developed by Noodle Bar's Kevin Pemoulie and team, had a crispy skin basted with bibim sauce and soy. I would like to note here that while Momofuku's website describes the fried chicken dinner as including one Southern-style chicken and one Korean-style chicken, actually, the Southern-style chicken was all white meat, and all of the dark meat was fried Korean-style.

While it pains me greatly to say this, I have to confess that I was disappointed with the fried chicken that night. I had huge expectations for the heaping platter of chicken sitting before me, but I also desperately wanted to love it. I didn't. Beginning with the Southern-style, my biggest complaint was that the chicken was slightly dry, with none of the juicy plumpness that I love in fried chicken. The skin, very thick and a little tough, tasted overly seasoned with celery salt. I found that the Southern-style chicken needed a heavy dose of sauces (for moisture) and veggies (to offset some of the excessively salty flavor). My favorite combinations were a mu shu wrap with lettuce, shiso leaves, carrots, chicken, and ginger-scallion sauce, as well as a simpler wrap with lettuce and hoisin sauce (I ended up putting hoisin sauce on almost every wrap I made!). The jalapeno-garlic sauce, reputedly made exclusively for the fried-chicken dinner, had a watery consistency that did not lend itself to being poured on top of an assembled wrap - you had to dip the chicken in the sauce before putting in the wrap, or else you ended up with a soggy mess on your plate.

The Korean-style fried chicken went over better with me, it had a nice sweet-spicy-salty taste with crispy skin, and most importantly, the meat was juicy (probably because it was dark meat). I ate a few pieces directly off the bone to enjoy the crackling skin and intense flavor, then constructed a wrap with a mu shu pancake, lettuce, radishes, basil, and jalapeno-garlic sauce.

Eric's thoughts on the chicken: Agree with Erica on the Southern-style chicken. It was definitely over-seasoned. Not a fan of celery salt in general, so the Old Bay didn't really work for me. The crust was too thick, almost overfried to the point where it was just hard vs. crisp or crunchy. The Korean-style was definitely an improvement but it still didn't do it for me. The chicken was triple fried, the skin, which was separated from the moist flesh, was perfect: thin, crisp, yet not greasy. The sauce however lacked the kick and flavor of Bon Chon Chicken. Every single person who has written about the Momofuku Fried Chicken has raved so I might just be nuts.

The concept of wrapping meat with sauces, likely inspired by Momofuku Ssam Bar's spectacular pork-shoulder Bo Ssam, seemed fine in principal but was difficult in practice - fried chicken meat does not separate easily from the bone; it is nearly impossible to cut the meat away cleanly; and only one set of sauces was given so our group ended up passing around veggies and sauces with sticky fingers covered in fried-chicken.

Overall, I left the dinner mildly disappointed and consoled myself by walking over to Milk Bar for some banana cake (my favorite) and some cherry/cereal milk swirl soft serve. I am considering returning for another round of fried chicken, given the extremely positive reviews. Who knows, maybe the fried chicken was having an off night...

Rating: *

Momofuku Noodle Bar, 171 1st Ave, New York, NY 10003

Epicurious Entertains NYC

Just got tickets to the Cutting-Edge Cuisine: A Paul Liebrandt Dinner and Fatty Sunday: A Zak Pelaccio Lunchtime Feast. Would have loved to go to Batali but it was sold out in an hour.

I was a big fan of Paul Liebrandt's restaurant, Corton, when I went. The food showed exquisite technique but most importantly tasted great. Also, a very reasonable wine list for a fine dining restaurant. As for Fatty Sunday, who doesn't love BBQ and football... Go Jets!

You can get tickets here.

Review: Locanda Verde

E&E were craving some good Italian and decided to hit up Locanda Verde for dinner. The restaurant, which is helmed by Chef Andrew Carmellini and replaces the failed Ago in the Greenwich Hotel, had been receiving some positive buzz and we were excited for some country-style Italian cooking. Calling on a Wednesday for a Sunday night reservation, we were able to score a table at 7:45 pm.

The menu is split into a few types of small plates (cicchetti and antipasti), pasta, secondi, and contorni. E&E, both fans of tapas-style meals, ordered several small plates and a single pasta to share, after our secondi of choice, fresh scallops with corn, was unavailable.

On the menu
Our first, and one of our favorite, dishes was a blue crab crostino with jalapeno. Sweet, fresh crab meat was piled onto perfect toothsome bread, spread liberally with tomato sauce and speckled with a few pieces of delicately cut jalapeno peppers. There was a generous portion of crab with no fillers. It was light and perfect for summer.

Next, we had some lamb meatball sliders, served with tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, and pickled cucumber. The lamb was flavorful, the brioche bun was moist and springy, and the tangy sauce cut the creamy richness of the ricotta perfectly. Our only comment was that the meatball itself felt a little dense, almost a little dry.

Tripe alla parmigiana followed - the tripe was served stew-style with a soft-fried duck egg, large chunks of carrots and celery simmered in a rich, spicy tomato broth. The overall effect was comforting and hearty, but E&E both felt that there was not enough actual tripe in the dish. While the chunks of tripe itself was soft and flavorful, it was easy to lose the tripe in the chunky vegetables - a shame because we loved the flavor of the dish itself.

The last of our small plates was a generous portion of sheep's milk ricotta, served with sea salt and herbs. It came in a sumptuous, creamy heap, drizzled with olive oil, sea salt, and herbs, notably rosemary, and was served with some excellent charred, chewy country-style bread. The ricotta was delicious, rich but airy, with a subtle tangy note from the sheep's milk.

Lastly, after a recommendation from our waitress, we ordered the special pasta that was on the menu for that night: a house-made linguine with lobster, rock shrimp, zucchini, and toasted garlic in a butter-saffron sauce. We would have been better served to go with a pasta on the regular menu - the dish was oddly flavorless and lacked depth, tasting of salty butter but little else. The noodles were limp and tasted as if they could have been from a box, though our server assured us that the pasta was fresh. The lobster meat was skimpy, with claw meat only, and contributed no flavor to the pasta - there was none of the distinctive sweet and briny lobster flavor that most lobster dishes bring. We were hugely disappointed.

A small consolation was that the side dish we ordered, rustic potatoes with garlic and parmigiano-reggiano, was sublime. The garlicky, cheesy sauce was delectable and potatoes themselves were excellent - crisp on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. The flavor was rich, but not too much so, and they served as a happy distraction from the pasta.

The dessert menu had some definite potential, but both E&E were too full eat anything else unfortunately. We would have liked to have ended on a more positive note than the disappointing lobster pasta.



Wines:

White - the Terensuola Vermentino "Monetsagna" 2008 was light-to -medium bodied wine that was crisp and fruity, with a slight sweetness.

Red - the Alberice Refosco was medium-bodied, with a high acidity and hints of currant and plum. We had asked our server for a recommendation for a light red to enjoy with the pasta - we found this a little too heavy for the dish, although we liked the wine itself.

Overall, we had a pleasant experience at dinner and found their smaller plates to be mostly excellent. The restaurant itself is beautiful, both elegant and rustic, with dark wood tables, cozy leather benches, and some charming country touches, such as books and plants lining a faux bookcase in the dining area. Service was attentive and warm. Even though they had warned us that the dishes would come as they are ready, the pacing of the meal itself was a bit odd - we received almost all of our small plates within ten minutes, then after finishing, waited an additional 20-25 minutes for our main course. We would have liked to have had fewer small dishes arrive at one time, with less space in between the small plates and the pasta. We would love to give their other pastas a try (perhaps the white bolognese or the ravioli), as well as the scallops.

Rating: **

Locanda Verde, 377 Greenwich St., New York, NY 10013