Over the years, I've definitely been pretty critical of David Chang. I wasn't a huge fan of his Noodle Bar but I've started to turn a corner a bit after a solid outing at Ssam bar. So when he jumped on the fried chicken sandwich bandwagon, I wasn't 100% sure I would to get sucked into the hype but I figured it was still worth a fun lunch trip to see my friend Neel.
Fuku is located in the old Monofuku Ko space, so it's tiny. It's not a sit down place - you place your order with the host as soon as you walk in, she gives you a number and then you have about 10 places to stand around to eat your food. Neel and I saddled up to the bar and watched as they deep fried chicken and fries like mad men. I've always known kitchen/restaurant life is hard, but it's definitely not fun being squished in a space that's no bigger than my bathroom frying chicken in 100 degree heat. The one annoying thing was that the beeper for the frier kept going off every 10-15 mins and it was piercing loud, so that was a bit annoying.
The menu here is pretty small, I mean you're coming here for the chicken sandwich so that else is there really to think about? I got the combo which included the sandwich, fries and a drink for $12, which is actually a pretty good deal once you see how much food it is. But I've spent way more on lunch in my own work building.
The food comes out fairly quickly and extremely hot. The sandwich is a monster - a HUGE piece of chicken that is spilling out of the potato bun. There was so much of it, that they had to double layer the chicken on top of each other. I was in such a rush to order that I didn't stop to really read the menu, so I got my sandwich plain but you can order it with shredded daikon on it which I should have done. The sandwich comes with pickles and you can add hot sauce to it, but it really could have benefited from addition of more veggies on it to moisten it up a bit. It's not to say that the chicken was dry - it was actually incredibly juicy once you bit into it, but it's just such a monstrous piece of fried goodness, that no matter what, you need to cut it with some lettuce or obviously, the daikon that they offer. The chicken was seasoned well and it really took everything for me to finish the whole thing. I loved that it was very true to the chicken which meant more focus on the meat and less breading and fried skin on it. As for the fries - don't get them alone, you must split them with someone else otherwise it's too much fried food for one person's heart to take. They were large thick cut fries with old bay seasoning sprinkled on it and they were delicious but I ended up taking all of mine home and eating them later.
I haven't had the Shake Shack fried chicken sandwich but I hear that it gives this one a run for it's money. While I wouldn't recommend eating this more than once every other month, it's definitely something you should check out before the chicken craze dies down and this place is transformed into some other hipster pop-up. Total bill: $13 with tax
Photo Credit: Yelp
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