Wangs

There is no hype for one of the best fried chicken restaurants in New York

671 Union St. | Park Slope, Brooklyn

Great fried chicken is likely to cause hysteria. You might recall the chicken sandwich wars of 2019, when Popeye’s received universal hosannas for realizing after 47 years in business that the chicken they’d been frying that whole time could also be put on bread. People lost their minds and the internet exploded with every influencer recording their version of the exact same rave. Stores ran out everywhere, and franchises faced massive supply chain issues for months. The sandwich is fine.

Fried chicken is a democratic food, almost universally loved, easy to understand, simple to execute. The barrier to entry is low, but the cost of world-class quality is endless reps and a monastic devotion to perfecting the few elements involved. It should not be hard to get attention for making it exceptionally well. And yet, to my simmering frustration, here is Wangs, nuzzled into a Park Slope side street, pleasantly chugging along with little fanfare. Rarely a line. They are making some of the most delicious fried chicken in New York, and a study in the anatomy of inattention.

The restaurant’s promise, proudly painted on an adjacent fence in bold colors, is “Asian + Soul Food,” like half an equation that hasn’t been completed. Passersby are sadly more likely to note the boast before even seeing the joint itself, something beyond a “hole-in-the-wall,” a kitchen with a window, a modest notch out of the building.

Union Street is one of the few roads in Park Slope with a double-wide sidewalk, a remnant of its status as an original thoroughfare leading up the hill to Olmsted’s magnificent Prospect Park. There’s plenty of space for Wangs’ three humble sidewalk tables, all that is offered in the way of seating. In some other meritocratic dimension these are hotly coveted, in ours they’re reliably vacant. How could this be?

This brief stretch of concrete deserves to be a public sanctuary. A holy space to pull piping hot chicken from the bone, to tear the beautiful zig-zag of double-fried whole wings into flats and drumsticks, while passersby head up the slope from the train, rubbernecking your meal and doing the math on whether the groceries in the fridge will satisfy. Maybe tonight’s the night they finally try the place. Please?

The fact that these wings have not asserted themselves into city-wide conversations is a black mark on the conversation itself. The wings arrive robust, stacked in a box as if climbing out into your hands. They beg to be torn apart and devoured, slicked with Korean flavors, sticky and sugary. They’re speckled with slivers of fresh green onion, heralding the mighty crunch of finely dialed-in batter. You have unknowingly been waiting for these!

To boast that their menu features the marriage of Asian flavors and soul food is both accurate and dangerous. Each label invites the snarky opprobrium of the over-informed Brooklyn diner, eager to strike you down for insufficient authenticity. Eager to cast you aside for not ascending to the standard set by their grandmothers’ cooking, burned into their minds as adolescents, never to be touched by mortals. Seeking their approval is an exhausting cycle of self-aggrandizing and disappointment.

But the cross-cultural promise hums in the chicken, and sings in the sides. Each predictable soul food tune harmonizes with Asian notes. Vibrant collard greens hide choruses of Chinese sausage, of ginger and garlic. Gochugaru bread crumbs accent creamy mac & cheese. Ancient dark tones of chili. The kimchi is the only option that solos as you’d expect it, but masterfully so. Play it with the chicken. Funky and staccato. A bright counterpoint to a cuisine too often mired in grease and umami. How could you not run to this food? Crave it weekly? Where is the crowd I would immediately resent?

To celebrate the restaurant is a step removed from what’s really going on here. On most visits, you’ll find chef and co-owner Sara Nguyen preparing your food, as she has since 2014, head down and hands up-tempo. A Vietnamese-American from Southern California who Top Chef devotees may remember from Season 3. Hers is not a huge menu. How could it be? The kitchen could fit in your pocket. And yet the wings, traditional fried chicken, and chicken banh mi compose—along with a bevy of sides—a brilliant palette for painting a new experience at every visit.

Trying a restaurant that has not been widely covered feels like swimming upstream. It’s easy to draft off emphatic influencers, likely paid, often told what to proclaim. You could go the rest of your life huffing the vapor of what you’re sold in cheese pulls and the claims of dishes that “hit different.” The culture of following is infuriating. The alternative is often daunting.

Trying places I know little to nothing about can challenge my many biases. I first noticed Wangs driving up 4^th Avenue—far from the culinary center of Brooklyn—and probably passed it twenty times before even considering going. The name reminded me of an unsavory sports bar in the hellish Hollywood neighborhood of LA called Big Wangs, that I avoided like polio when I lived there and which has since vanished. Sara claims the name comes from the southern pronunciation of the food—I wonder how many people she ran it by before hitting print.

But Wangs reminds me why biases mislead, why you need to just try places, why you lean on trusted friends. You have your own algorithm living in your mind—you would do well to over-index aromas and downplay terrible fonts. The rewards are plentiful! Not every gift is perfectly wrapped.

That’s how I find myself alone on the sidewalk, enraptured, licking bright sauce from my fingers and wondering how these wings can still be so hot after this long in the crisp night. A hum of self-satisfaction. How does she do this? I pray she endures. The “Wangs” sign lights up my tray of delights, the name faded and effortlessly off-putting. Please forgive this mistake—it’s the only one you’ll find here.

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Images:

1. 3-piece wangs with Wangs hot sauce

2. Outside Wangs

3. My order as delivered to my table

4. Whole fried chicken

5. A blurry photo of kimchi, mac & cheese, and collard greens

6. The window and menu