MAD FOR CHICKEN
157-18 Northern Boulevard
Flushing, NY 11354
(718) 321-3818

Bro and I both had off for Passover, so we used the opportunity to shoot over to Flushing for lunch at a Korean wing place that's been on my radar ever since winter. We've never been the most Kosher of New Yorkers. I tell you, Koreatown in Manhattan has nothing on Flushing for sheer volume of Korean restaurants.

Mad For Chicken is nothing if not tacky. The garish interior with its brick-a-brak laden walls, high-backed leatherette vinyl chairs and flat-screen televisions at every table that alternate a display of fine art (Van Gogh, Klimt) and food you can order from the menu. The menu, which is paper, graphically intense and takes as much physical space on the table as a newspaper, touts the health values of their organic chicken. It's low in calories, high in protein, and high in nutrients. Also, they skin their chicken, so it's low fat too! Of course, then they deep fry these suckers... so... Plus the music is just awful. I never thought anyone would make, let alone dare to play for public consumption, technopop muzak. It was garish, but at least I was able to distract myself by watching the menu on TV...

Okay, so the roll-your-eyes factor is high. The food was very very good. Mad For Chicken clearly wants to tout its ability to make a good chicken wing, but the menu is actually rather diverse. Wings aside, they also have salads, rice dishes, noodle dishes and Korean entrees like Nak Gee (stir fried octopus). We started with Fried Dumplings, which we ordered spicy (and which came spicy, even by my standards). The menu doesn't say what was in them (I'm guessing vegetables and pork), but they were crispy and great. When I say crispy, I mean almost like with a cracker shell, but still malleable.

Bro and I came, of course, for the chicken. Interestingly, they only offer two flavors: Soy Garlic and Hot & Spicy. For an additional buck twenty five you can choose from their half dozen dipping sauces. We skipped them though when we ordered the Mad Combo for Two, which we got half soy garlic and half hot and spicy. It was, in a word, amazing. Great goddamn wings. Crispy shelled, skinless, intensely moist. The batter isn't greasy and the sauce isn't gloppy like it was added at the last second as an afterthought. The spicy was hot, but not such that it shears off tastebuds leaving you panting for water and blue cheese. The real gem though was the soy garlic, which was flat out insanely good. Sweet with a bit of garlic tang. Watch out when you bite in. They're steamy hot inside that batter-fried shell. The only downside to these wings are the wait. 25 minutes. So get an appetizer and have a lot to talk about (or bring a Gameboy).

Bro and I didn't order any drinks, but you can get wine and sake, soda and tea, or beer, which they serve by cubic centimeter, up to 5000cc. Just for comparison, the motorcycle on my Christmas list that accelerates from zero to sixty in 4.3 seconds uses a 900cc engine.

One appetizer, one chicken combo for two people and two sodas cost $36 with tax and tip.

No delivery.