Two of LA's Most Innovative Restaurants Just Killed the Fried Chicken Game

It was a perfect August evening in Los Angeles, with weather so pleasant, even choked traffic couldn't bring you down. Inside Night + Market in West Hollywood, staff hurried around the restaurant prepping for a chef collaboration as dazzling as the week's Perseid meteor shower.

Night + Market's larb king, Kris Yenbamroong, had teamed up with Baroo's chef Kwang Uh for the night, not just to bring together their respective Thai and Korean food, but to kill the fried chicken game.

Lore has it—or rather, the header on the night's menu read—that the idea for the collaboration had been in the works since Christmas Eve. After eating Kris' fried chicken at Night + Market's annual holiday party, Kwang and his Baroo co-owner, Matthew Lee, liked the crispy goodness so much, they vowed to host a chicken-focused pop-up together in the future.

Eight months later, that future arrived. Tickets for the à la carte format dinner sold out immediately.

At 6:00 PM, Kris and Kwang talked strategy in the Night + Market kitchen. Tasks were delegated, plans forged. Staff from both restaurants prepped for service, which would begin in a half-hour.

While Kris and Kwang spoke to each other in English, the dominant language in the kitchen was Thai. Kwang and his team used Korean. There was some Spanish in the mix, too.

The evening's menu was equally culture-clashing. There was Thai ramen, kimchi shrimp toast, an uni tostada. The pad kee mao gnocchi was complete with shaved Parmesan and Szechuan peppercorn broth, obviously.

At 6:20 PM, the chefs led a quick pre-shift tasting of the dishes with the service staff. "Isn't that an Italian dish?" a staff member asked his colleague biting into the beef tartare with smoked kombu oil and fermented shiso.

Guest sommelier Jennifer Green followed up with a crash course on the wine pairings. There was a Riesling for the nam khao tod, a cab franc for the fermented rice noodles with coconut cream.

As the first round of guests were seated at 6:30 PM, the energy picked up in the kitchen. Tickets began to roll in, the expo calling out orders to the cooks in Thai and English.

And then there was the fried chicken.

Kris' signature Night + Market fried chicken, dusted with smoked paprika powder, was served with a Baroo's black garlic buttermilk ranch dip and a fermented chili pepper hot sauce made from produce by Kong Thao, a Fresno farmer who came to the dinner. It was a crispy, juicy, creamy, spicy match made in trendy food heaven.

"Having fun?" Kris asked Kwang during service.

"Yeah," Kwang responded. The succinct response appeared to be accurate. Throughout the night, there were smiles all around the controlled kitchen chaos. The spirit of Christmas, or maybe the spirit of fried chicken, had delivered on the good cheer.