8 OBSESSING OVER FRIED CHICKEN
Sandwich of the Year: Fried Chicken. Shake Shack made headlines this year with a limited release of a fairly conventional ChickenShack sandwich ... and David Chang did, too, with an incendiary sandwich at Fuku, perhaps a nascent chain. They follow an emerging obsession. No longer just southern, fried chicken sandwiches have gone creative ... and ethnic.
In Fuku's case, you're munching on a mammoth boneless thigh marinated in habanero purée, buttermilk, and Changian spices, deep-fried ... topped with some acidic vegetables. Barbecue maven Mighty Quinn smokes its thighs before frying ... topped with fermented chilies-garlic-lime sauce .... on brioche with pickled cucumbers and pickled celery for crunch. In LA, Night+Market has an off-menu ultra-crunchy brined-and-fried thigh with ranch dressing, tomato, green papaya shreds tinged with fish sauce, cilantro and fresh jalapeno. Also in LA, Hinoki and the Bird has a lunch-only version topped with shichimi togarashi dressing (see #9, Spice Blends, below) and crisp daikon radish. Meanwhile, McDonald's ... audaciously leading from behind ... slaps the word "artisan" onto its factory chicken. Most outrageous version? Kansas City's Chicken Macaroni & Cheese restaurant serves Chick-A-Roni ... crunchy pieces swaddled in gooey mac-and-cheese in a soft hoagie. Tied, perhaps, with a bizzaro donut shop's chicken breast sandwiched between a griddled pumpkin spiced latte donut.
Chicken Flavor of the Year: Nashville Hot. A cult favorite that's spreading across the country ... meant to burn your lips for days on end. Like buffalo wings, Nashville Hot Chicken is dunked in hot sauce after frying; but it ain't plain old hot sauce ... this is a thermonuclear paste of melted lard, sugar, sadistic quantities of cayenne, sugar and
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each chef's secret spices. It is showing up in fried chicken joints and sitdown restaurants ... usually sitting on what looks like a blood-stained piece of white bread. In St. Louis, a new restaurant called Southern generates lines for its Nashville Hot Chicken ... run by Rick Lewis, the town's chef of the year in 2013. Johnny Zone ... who cooked at Husk in Nashville ... NHC to LA in Howlin' Rays food truck. Cask & Larder will open next year in Orlando's airport featuring the item. State Park's NHC in Boston bites your entire face with ghost chiles, cayenne, aji amarillo and smoked paprika. Due South in DC puts its version into a sandwich. Carla Hall's opening a NHC place in Brooklyn. The Yardhouse chain added the item this year ... even latecomer KFC has been testing some version of it. We're waiting for cheffy versions of the dish to emerge ... like Seoul Hot Chicken marinated in kimchee juice.