David Chang, the restaurateur and chef taking the modern urban food scene by storm, has been working on some new and exciting things for the NYC food scene. The Momofuku brand already has made a name with restaurants from the fine dining-oriented, Momofuku Nishi, to the more casual Momofuku Noodle Bar. David Chang’s work has been dedicated to reinventing the food scene. He uses classical ingredients and rethinks the whole concept, demonstrated in his work with his ongoing fermentation project.
Photo by Herman Li
One of his newest creations that just turned a year old is Fuku+. David Chang’s vision for this restaurant is to reimagine the classic fried chicken sandwich. He wanted to make the ultimate crunchy and juicy fried chicken sandwich, and it delivers.
But first lets get down to the atmosphere. Momofuku’s “signature” decor has been minimal with mainly light wooden walls/tables. A note when eating here is the restaurant lacks many seats since it’s more of a quick spot to grab food. With the “movie screening” menu board, the whole restaurant reminds me of a clean and modern fast food joint.
Photo by Herman Li
I got the full package, the Koreano and the Compost Cookie. The Koreano is a spicy fried chicken sandwich with julienne pickled daikon and pickles. I polished mine off with the signature Ssam Sauce, a spicy Korean sauce developed for David Chang’s Bo Ssam. The fried chicken was a bit messy but definitely delicious.
David Chang definitely perfected the fried chicken. My only suggestion would be to increase the bun to fried chicken ratio and decrease the amount of pickled daikon. The daikon was somewhat overpowering, especially with so much of it. But overall, this is a very good sandwich beating what I’ve had at the Chick-fil-A.
Photo by Herman Li
Next, we have the compost cookie, a staple at Momofuku Milk Bar. The compost cookie is a mix of a bunch of innovative ingredients put into a sandwich such as potato chips and butterscotch chips. I would highly suggest getting this cookie at the original Milk Bar. This particular cookie was a bit hard (maybe stale?). If I would make a suggestion as to what to include, it would be the Cereal Ice Cream or any ice cream at that. The ice cream can be a riff off of Shake Shack’s Concretes and would be a good contrast to the fried chicken.
Photo by Herman Li
Overall, my experience at Fuku+ was very good. Individual components of the restaurant are well thought through, but some things seemed slapped on. The Spicy Fried Chicken Sandwich is definite must get here. Ultimately, it’s much better than Chick-fil-A, although maybe skip on the daikon. The drinks also looked very good, although I did not get them. There is definitely some magic going on at Fuku+.