Coqodaq

12 E 22nd St.

Coqodaq is the sister restarurant of Cote in the Flatiron area and I am a frequent visitor of Undercote (bar under Cote). I love me some Korean fried chicken and I have been trying to make the time to score a ressy for quite some time! Let’s start with the ambiance - it is GORGEOUS. The mood in the restaurant is dark, elevated, and sexy. Those are three words you don’t ever expect to work with fried chicken of any sort. But this time it worked! The front of the restaurant is lined with beautiful sinks, perfect after you lick your fingers clean post-chicken.

Our reservation was a 9pm, but we got in around 8:30pm hoping to get seated earlier, but it was very PACKED! The hosts were very kind and found us a space at the bar to stand and wait for an open table. The drinks were strong and meant business. Our first round was the Jubilee and a classic Espresso Martini. The Jubilee was a mix of gin, oolong - very fresh. The espresso martini was strong! For round two we ordered the High Voltage and the Golden Hour. The High Voltage was a mix of gin, green apple, and yuzu. The Golden Hour can well be described as a better version of the negroni! What would I get next time to drink? High Voltage the whole time.

Let’s talk chicken, the main focus of Coqodaq. We ordered the famous Golden nugget with caviar for $28 and the Bucket List priced at $46. The Golden Nugget was presented on a stand. The flavors were crispy and the perfect salty from the caviar.

The Bucket List came with chicken consommé to start the meal, banchans, the bucket of original fried chicken, a second wave of flavored fried chicken (we chose the split of soy garlic glaze and the gochujang glaze). The cold perilla noodles follow and then end with a passionfruit ice cream.

My personal take was the consomme was a delicious palate cleanser - I could drink that all day! The banchan included were a scallion salad, picked daikon radish, kimchi, and yuzu beans - all were fresh. When it was time for the chicken, I had extremely high hopes - and it was underwhelming. While the fried chicken was the perfect juicy and crispy, it seemed to lack flavor. The soy garlic and gochujang glaze seemed to be holding back flavor and it wasn’t as saucy. The cold perilla noodles were actually my favorite, so simple, yet so much flavor. I wish we had been given a bigger portion of that!

The ice cream with passionfruit was the best way to end the meal. Tart and sweet. Would I go back to Coqodaq? I might but I would personally skip the chicken bucket and head to the appetizers and drinks. On a scale out of 10, Coqodaq gets a 6.5/10.