The Food of Taiwan, and Home, at Wenwen | The New Yorker

"At a new Taiwanese restaurant in Greenpoint, I found its centerpiece to be the theatrical BDSM Chicken (brined, deboned, soy milk): a whole bird that’s deep-fried twice, sold as just five orders each night beginning at 5 p.m. (people line up at 4:30 and it’s gone by 5:05). Chef Eric Sze developed the deboning method after experiments dating to 2019 to make the bird cook more uniformly, and the final version uses yellow-fat chickens from Flushing Live Poultry and a soy‑milk–based batter whipped with sweet‑potato starch and tofu for exceptional lift and crunch. Finished with a “Taiwan dust” of white pepper, MSG, sugar, and salt plus smoked paprika, turmeric, and curry powder, the exterior is craggy and crisp and breaks open to reveal luscious meat with pockets of yellow fat; if you can’t snag one at dinner, the thigh is served at brunch on a roll with nori‑flecked fries. Wenwen’s guiding principle is comfort inspired by the food Sze ate growing up in Taipei (the restaurant is named for his mother, Wenchi, and his wife, Wenhui), and that sensibility shows in other dishes: shell‑on, head‑on Huadiao Shrimp glossed in ginger, scallion, garlic, and ketchup and served with sliced scallion mantou for sopping; a pork‑collar paigu add‑on to the unflashy Lily Flemming fried rice (marinated in five spice, rice wine, and sugar and battered in coarse and fine sweet‑potato starch so it’s as craggy as the chicken); silkily wok‑collapsed pea shoots strewn with spongy tofu skin; and water spinach stir‑fried with shrimp paste and tiny dried shrimp, all punctuated by chopped garlic. For dessert there’s a savory, inspired take on a Taiwanese stall treat: piping‑hot tangyuan, deep‑fried and filled with black‑sesame paste, nestled with scoops of vanilla ice cream, drizzled in condensed milk, and showered in chopped cilantro, candied peanuts, and dehydrated‑peanut‑butter powder. (Dishes $8–$52.)" - Hannah Goldfield