Turntable Mad for Chicken
PHOTOGRAPH BY LAUREN LANCASTER
We need to talk about chicken. Not the buttermilk-crusted crags and crevices of the South but the Korean variety: smooth, with a slight shimmer, resembling a lunar landscape, or at least what the moon looks like from Earth. Amid a crowded field in the shadow of the Empire State Building, there’s a particularly fine rendition of Korean fried chicken at the lavishly named Turntable Retro Bar & Restaurant Mad for Chicken, part of a mini-chain that originated in Flushing. Like many of Koreatown’s best establishments, it’s on the second floor of a bleak office building. After eight, a d.j. in a glass booth makes his presence known, loudly, to all the restaurant’s customers, many of whom have enthusiastically embraced the truth that fried chicken is a drunk food par excellence.