Get To The Dutch, On The Double
The Dutch | 131 Sullivan St. (corner of Prince St.) | 212.677.6200 | thedutchnyc.com |
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IT IS OFFICIALLY AUTUMN, AND with it, and its impending holidays, returns the lust for comfort foods, with restaurants organizing their menus to sate such customers' lust. Expect—unsurprisingly—to see macaroni and cheeses and meatloafs (meatloaves?) be "reinterpreted" in a myriad ways as customers recover from the last six months of having kimchee injected into everything from pot pies to grilled cheese sandwiches, and from trekking all around the city tracking down that specialty food truck like trying to find Waldo.
Pot pies and grilled cheeses will remain, of course, just with more traditionally American flourishes, and end of year food lists will care to inform its readers of the "Best" of, well, "Everything", and one of the more popular lists will indubitably feature fried chicken.
One of the newer restaurants already receiving positive words on their fried chicken, among a very many other dishes, is The Dutch, the much-hyped and -ballyhooed American-themed Soho boîte by Andrew Carmellini (Café Boulud, A Voce, Locanda Verde). The joint has been hopping since June, so, again, I wisely design on the place right before their early lunch rush for a quick several bites.
The lunch menu is a barely more modest iteration of the dinner menu, where supper's heartier plates such as lamb t-bone with olive marmalade or grilled quail with cashew nut mole gets only slightly reduced to lunch's smoked chicken with quinoa and smoked pork roll sandwich with pickled jalapeno. Regardless of time of day, everything starts with a deliciously moist and crumbly cornbread loaf, flecked with sweet-ish chilis or jalapenos. I was so distracted when my server brought it to my table that I didn't really pay attention to him telling me exactly what is was, though I can tell you it was quite good.
But I came here for the fried chicken, and I'll tell you why. I have always found true that one can divine the quality of a chef and his kitchen by way of his or her fried chicken. The concept is easy: chicken, flour, oil. Fried chicken gets elevated from "blah" or "meh" to "yowza!" not just by nuance of skill and knowledge—oil temperature maintenance, flour type selection, etc.—but a genuine care and will to elate the person who is going to eat it. The Dutch's kitchen succeeds in delivery a juicy chicken (one bite squirted my cheek!) with just enough seasoning and spices to delight the olfactory sense while letting the chicken taste of its meaty self. If you prefer to get more taste buds involved in the whole matter, their excellent house hot sauce and heat, piquancy, and a little acid in just a few drops. I gladly countered the extra spice with the honey butter (brushed) homemade biscuits, slightly dense but still light, and crumbly without being dry.
The housemade fries kept their heat and, more importantly, their crispiness throughout my four pieces of poultry and two biscuits. With the small dent I made in the starter cornbread, I couldn't think off a better way to intake my full day's worth of carbs.
It was even 12:30 p.m. when the tables around me started to fill up, and I could tell by the the plates of other food that were being devoured by neighboring customers—including sea scallops with sweet corn and bacon, as well as a variety of sandwiches that stood almost half a foot high—that the Dutch does indeed take great care in making the palates of its patrons very happy.
Sometime in the middle of the summer, the dinner reservation wait was over three weeks long. I'd advise you to find a way to not have to wait that long. Trust me, no one's going to judge you for having fried chicken at 11 in the morning. Comfort food means never having to say "I shouldn't have"...!
Bun Apple Tea!
.kac.
The Dutch | 131 Sullivan St. (corner of Prince St.) | 212.677.6200 | thedutchnyc.com |
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