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