Grub Street’s fingers are still sticky from pigging out on Pok Pok’s Asian chicken wings, and now we learn the LES shop isn’t the city’s only new source for Thai-style poultry: Kin Shop’s Harold Dieterle recently added a fried fowl to his nightly specials menu. The toque marinates his Bell & Evans birds in ginger, garlic, lemongrass, oyster sauce, and “super, super funky” Thai shrimp paste for 24 hours. They’re then dredged in rice flour and an Asian cereal and deep-fried, with herbs, fish-chili sauce, and coriander nam prik on the side.
The special is served nightly (except Mondays), and each four-piece plate goes for $24. Dieterle tells us he spent a long time tweaking his recipe, hoping to approximate the fried chicken you can buy on the street in Bangkok. And best to show up early: “It sells like crazy,” the toque said. “I don’t even have enough space in the fryer” to keep up with demand.