Midtown Lunch

Ever since the Jamaican Dutchy reappeared on the east side, I’ve been going there regularly. I know they have a long list of items and daily specials, but I’ve never had anything else other then their jerk chicken and their stew chicken. Then one day I decided to actually read the menu and the descriptions of each item, and was particularly intrigued by Friday’s lunch special- the escovitch chicken ($9 for small and $11 for large). What’s escovitch chicken? According to Jamaican Dutchy, escovtich chicken is boneless fried chicken. Two of my favorite words, fried and chicken. Since it was Friday, I had to check out what this was all about.

Well okay. This was not what I was expecting. These don’t look like fried boneless pieces of chicken. But heck, I do prefer dark meat and people always say that cooking with the bones in gives much more flavor to the dish. As usual with Jamaican Dutchy, the small was enough to feed 2 people. The pieces of chicken (2 drumstick and 1 thigh) were juicy and falling off the bone, as expected. The spices in the chicken tasted a little bit like KFC (in a good way) and sort of brought me back to the days when I used to eat KFC. Though one sad thing about this was the sogginess. I could tell the 3 pieces of chicken were once fried but I’m not sure why the coating of crunchiness turned into sogginess. Been sitting too long? The sauce made them soggy? In the end this was still a tasty lunch.

They’ve been parking on 43rd btw 2+3rd on Fridays, but as always you should check their twitter or the ML twitter tracker for updates. Or call their phone number: 718-737-3836.