If you like, the chicken (and other items) can be dusted with zab seasoning, a blend of salt, sugar, toasted rice, lemongrass, makrut-lime leaves, and Thai-chili powder, for a flinty, sweet-sour tinge.Ĭharles Gabriel, of Charles Pan-Fried Chicken, is a cult figure of Harlem, where his restaurants have been neighborhood staples since the first one opened, in 1990. Also on the Chinatown menu are a Hainanese poached chicken with rice, various noodles, wings, and exemplary curry puffs.

Accompanied by scallion-fortified chicken broth, cucumber slices, and sweet chili sauce, it makes a substantial, delicious meal. For a fried-chicken set ($15.95), fillets of skinless white or skin-on dark meat, with a hefty flour coating, are deep-fried, sliced, and served atop textbook sticky rice or luscious ginger rice, glistening with chicken fat. The elevated fast-casual spot Three Roosters Thai opened in Hell’s Kitchen (792 Ninth Ave.) in 2020, and in Chinatown (23 Pell St.) in May. Next, choose a spice level, each featuring a different Indian chili: Rascal (mild anyone can handle this), Ruffian (inoffensive, barely spicy), Rebel (a hot, pleasing singe), Rogue (“When it starts to get interesting,” as one cashier put it), or Rowdy (“crazy,” fear-inducingly hot).Īt Rowdy Rooster, each spice powder features a different Indian chili, from mild to incendiary: Rascal, Ruffian, Rebel, Rogue, or Rowdy.

To order, you choose a type of fried chicken: Lil’ Rowdy (slider-size) or Big Rowdy (normal-size) chicken sandwiches, small bone-in pieces, or boneless chunks. Rowdy Rooster (149 First Ave.)-from the warningly named Unapologetic Foods, a group of Indian restaurants which includes the Lower East Side breakout hit Dhamaka-is a small East Village counter spot that roared onto the scene in February with incendiary fried-chicken sandwiches ($9-$12). I’ll save those for another day and, meanwhile, drop these in the bucket. As of late, there’s a new Hawaiian fried chicken (at El Ta’Koy, in SoHo), a new Nashville-style hot (at Dave’s Hot Chicken, in midtown), and likely more. New spots keep popping up, each with its own proprietary spice blend, brining method, frying technique, delivery system. There are so many places to get so many styles of fried chicken in New York City that you could eat it somewhere different every day for a year and still have more to try. You can have your pâté and truffles, your caviar and Wagyu-but one thing I would pick over those (or in addition to those), anytime, is fried chicken.

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