Walking through Chelsea for dinner after work late last week, I realized at this time of night, in this season, I was once a kid in the suburbs of northwest Ohio, dressed in my hooded sweatshirt, playing tag or Mr. Fox with friends in the backyard. The streetlights would sputter on earlier than ever and our parents would call out to us from home that it was time for dinner.
Up there on my list of childhood comfort food, especially for chilly autumn nights like these, would be meatloaf, macaroni and cheese, various meat-and-potatoes casseroles, and last but not least, chicken. I headed downtown to Dirty Bird To-Go, purveyors of the best fried chicken in New York City, at least for a trendy white neighborhood. I’d been wanting to try this place since reading a positive capsule review of it in The New Yorker.
It’s all free-range chicken so I guess that means you’re meant to savor the rich taste of avian leisure, not the acidic tang of birds who lived and died cooped in mosh-pit pens, angry with the world and wobbling from the weight of their hormone-swollen chests.
Included on the menu are rotisserie and “chicken fingers,” but an evolutionary craving for hot and hearty fried food dictated my order. The goods at Dirty Bird are far removed from the greasy and salty catcher’s-mitt meat of KFC: they’re brined overnight, soaked in buttermilk, double-coated in a thick and sweetly spiced batter, then deep-fried until golden brown. Golden brown is an overused phrase, but in this case it’s literal. This is skin so crisp and succulent, biting into it sounds like audition day for a potato chip commercial. It’s hot and seals in the juiciness of the meat, which is still steaming because they don’t fry your order until you place it. For a side, I got the “dirty” rice, made with chopped shallots and giblets, among other mystery organ bits. Rounding out the dinner are two triangles of cornbread the consistency of fried mush (not a bad thing).
Décor is clean and basic, with six orange-painted wooden stools arranged at narrow ledges in the front windows and the walls aside the order/kitchen area. Reportedly they do a brisk takeout and delivery business.
Dirty Bird To-Go
- 204 W. 14th St.
- (212) 620-4836
- Meal 30 of 52: two-piece fried chicken with one side ($8.99) and a Boylan Black Cherry Soda ($2.00).