DOUBLE CHICKEN PLEASE: WE RATE THE FOOD AT THE NUMBER 2 RANKED BAR IN THE WORLD
The Cost - $33 per person
The Atmosphere – The back room, also called the Coop, feels more like a loungey bar than a restaurant but that makes sense given that Double Chicken Please was brought about to serve unique, craft cocktails. The space is dimly lit and offers low seating around small wooden circular tables for no more than twenty people in addition to some bar seating. There is also a front room with some high chair seating but that area is for drinks only (and only certain drinks). The atmosphere is mostly casual and relaxed, though you will definitely find people dressed up for a night out on a Friday or Saturday. Reservations are required and need to be booked pretty far in advance.
Located on the Lower East Side, Double Chicken Please has really made its way into the limelight since it was ranked the number 2 bar in the world by San Pelligrino on its 50 Best list. The bar, which also offers a menu filled nearly entirely with Taiwanese-inspired fried chicken dishes, is currently one of the hardest places to get a reservation in New York. While trying the cocktails was certainly a fun experience, I went to Double Chicken Please to try as many of its chicken dishes as I could.
The Order – Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich, Mochi Donut Chicken Sandwich, Popcorn Chicken, Chicken Liver Mousse and Le Big Mac.
The Fantastic – One dish reigned supreme over this meal and that was the Mochi Donut Chicken Sandwich. A large fried chicken breast sits between a full mochi donut (with sprinkles) that also contains pickled pineapple, habanero, cilantro, and strawberry, this sandwich hit all the right spots. It wasn’t too sweet, wasn’t too spicy, and didn’t at all taste gimmicky even though most of the time this sort of creativity leads to a gigantic failure. It wasn’t easy to eat with your hands (and let’s be real, New Yorkers know that this sandwich should only be eaten with your hands), but it was worth getting messy for. This epic chicken sandwich is a must-order.
The Great – The other three chicken dishes that we ordered all received our Great rating. The Chicken Liver Mousse was an appetizer-style dish in which the mousse was placed in a jar with a layer of coffee butter on top to preserve it. You might be inclined to dig into the coffee butter because it sounds delicious, but it isn’t meant to be eaten. Instead, scoop it out and go right for the soft, smooth, and savory mousse that is accompanied by slices of fresh bread for you to spread it out on.
The Popcorn Chicken could have been ordered as an easily shareable appetizer or a main course. The small pieces of fried chicken were served in an old-school popcorn box and were accompanied by some small wooden sticks for you to spear a slightly larger than pop-corn-sized piece of chicken and dip into your favorite dipping sauce. The dish didn’t come with any dipping sauces, but we decided to order all three of them to try them out. At $4 each, the Hot Honey, Salted Egg Yolk, and Thai Basil Aioli sauces were all excellent and were all worth the price. You don’t need to order all three with a single order of the popcorn chicken so I’d recommend choosing a maximum of two for a single order. The fried chicken itself was very good but it wasn’t mind-blowing – this dish is elevated by the excellent sauces.
The last of the Great dishes was the Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich. More like a traditional fried chicken sandwich, this dish was more of a non-shareable entrée that consisted of a buttermilk fried chicken breast that was topped with a Thai basil aioli, the same sauce that was served with the popcorn chicken. It was a very tasty fried chicken sandwich and the portion was pretty big, but it wasn’t anything out of this world. I’d definitely order it again but if you’re only going to choose one chicken sandwich on the menu, the Mochi Donut is a sandwich that you’re not going to forget anytime soon.
The Good – The one dish that I really wasn’t impressed by from a taste perspective was the Le Big Mac, the only item we ordered for dessert. It got major points for creativity – after all, it did look a lot like a Big Mac – but it just didn’t taste right. The dessert consisted of a macaron, which served as the “bun,” with chocolate ice cream, yuzu, and mochi in between. I appreciated the fact that the macaron did a solid job as a substitute for the bun but the flavors of this dish just didn’t do it for me.
The Verdict – I didn’t go in to Double Chicken Please with the highest culinary expectations, but I was pretty impressed by the majority of the dishes. The chicken dishes were very well done and the concept and menu items were well thought through. There was a lot of creativity and playfulness on the menu and the prices were very reasonable, especially given the bar’s accolades and that it still takes months to get a reservation. If you’re lucky enough to get a spot at the Coop, don’t you dare leave without ordering that Mochi Donut Chicken Sandwich.