Not every day can be fried chicken day -- the subject of my review this week. In addition to the three restaurants I mentioned, Spice Kit, the banh mi and Asian wrap shop on First and Howard streets, has a San Franciscan covered two days a week.
This summer, founder Will Pacio and Spice Kit chef Fred Tang started up Fried Chicken Fridays, which expanded into Fried Chicken Wednesdays in late October. They offer the chicken like any other meat on the restaurant's menu: in a sandwich, salad, bowl, or wrap.
Though Spice Kit's lines move quick, they usually extend out the door, and so it wasn't surprising that when I arrived at 12:30 p.m. last Wednesday, I was one of the last few customers to score a chicken order. As they do with most of their food, Pacio and Tang have pulled a couple of different cuisines into the chicken recipe. They red-cook boneless strips of thigh meat -- braising it with soy, rock sugar, cinnamon, and star anise -- and then dust the meat with rice flour and drop it in the fryer. The meat doesn't come out terribly crisp, but the it is cola-colored, rich, and aromatic.
I ordered the chicken as a bowl, and the clash between the sweet chicken
and tart, spicy kimchi fried rice was vivid enough that I had to
separate the two, finishing off the rest of the chicken before taking
on the rice. If I make it back to Spice Kit on a Wednesday or Friday,
I'd order the chicken in a banh mi, where the mayonnaise, lightly
pickled vegetables, and cilantro would make much better complements.
