As previously mentioned, no one loves fried chicken more than I do, so when I saw David Chang of Momofuku having a fried chicken cook-off with Questlove, drummer for the Roots, on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," I knew I had to get me some of that chicken; and since reservations at Momofuku are hard to come by, it made much more sense to go to the Chelsea Market where Quest's chicken is being sold at a little counter called Hybird, even though Chang's chicken won the taste-test.
Before we got dinner though, and after the fantastic art museum, we went back to Times Square for separate matinees. Peter asked me a few weeks ago if I wanted to see "The Glass Menagerie" with him - a new staging that was getting great reviews; I read one of the reviews which described the play as "heartbreakingly good," and decided I didn't want to pay $100 to get my heart broken. Instead, I paid $50 for a balcony seat to see "First Date" which I had heard was good, but still made a mistep by not even glancing at the reviews or I might have seen this in the New York Times:
Does any of the following sound familiar? An instant lack of rapport; a growing aversion as the minutes pass; a mysterious sense that time has suddenly stopped; a desperate hope that the apocalypse will arrive, preferably right this minute. Magnify those feelings, set them to bland pop-rock music, and you’ll have some idea of the oodles of fun I didn’t have during my evening at “First Date."
The reviewer assesses the musical as being no better than a bad sitcom with the all too enthusiastic audience acting as the laugh track for this astoundingly unoriginal story. To be fair, the majority of the audience (99% women) seemed to be totally enjoying themselves, including a young woman who was sitting next to me who "awww"ed during the poignant (and I'm using that term loosely) bits and applauded wildly just where the producers hoped she would. It's not that I'm jaded about romantic comedies or romance in general, but more that I have little patience for mediocre writing making it all the way to Broadway. I mean, would a women really harp on her 30-year old sister about her biological clock ticking away? Is that really still a thing? Do people going on blind dates really set up "bail out" calls where a friend calls 10 minutes in to fake an emergency so if the date is going badly you can leave? Wouldn't you just say "so, I'm going to leave now..." and if pressed with "why?" say, "because I want to"? It was just too formulaic with not even a hint of cleverness. Oh well, I've had worse theater experiences.
I got out around 5:30pm and took a short walk back to the lobby of the Intercontinental to wait for Peter (who said "The Glass Menagerie" was indeed really good) and we headed to the Chelsea Market.
Peter made me a fried chicken dinner earlier this year which was spectacular. He used a tedious recipe from America's Test Kitchen which turned out perfectly. I guess it's not fair to compare homemade fried chicken with somewhat mass-produced fried chicken behind a fast-food counter (although the chicken was fried fresh, we had to wait a good 15 minutes for it) but still - it was no contest. I'd pit Peter's chicken against David Chang's any day.
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| fried chicken from Hybird |
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| Peter's fried chicken; it wasn't even close. |
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| Seattle has 'Market Spice' on Pike Street; New York has 'Spices and Tease' in the Chelsea Market. |
