Fried Chicken, The Dismemberment Plan, and Cereal Milk: East Village NYC

The Gozicks are crazy into music, just like Gary, so when they heard that The Dismemberment Plan (indie rock band) was getting back together for a tour, we immediately planned a trip to the city for dinner and a show in the East Village. (Caution: the following blog post contains graphic descriptions of obscenely unhealthy food...viewer discretion is advised.)

FIRST STOP: The Redhead for dinner.

The Redhead 349 East 13th St NYC
(above picture from: Serious NY Eats )

The Redhead is a tiny Southern style bistro, but luckily we got there early and were seated right away. After peeling off our millions of winter layers, we got right down to business and started studying the menu - a task which the guys took very seriously....


We decided to start with with bacon peanut brittles (because, as the menu notes, "everything's better with bacon") and house made soft pretzels with Kentucky beer cheese - both of which were flawless.



Then we tried three different entrees...

Chris had the redhead burger with homemade chips, which he said was fantastic and perfectly cooked. A nice touch to his dish was the spicy mustard, which came on the side with the traditional mayo and ketchup condiments.

I had the low country shrimp with anson mills antebellum grits and andouille sausage. I hate to say it, but my meal was sub-par. The grits were overloaded with raw onion and celery, and otherwise lacked flavor and texture.


Christine and Gary both had buttermilk fried chicken, which came with a corn muffin and spinach & pear salad. (Note that the misplaced pickle on Gary's plate is from Chris's meal.) This is the dish that the restaurant is known for, and Christine immediately declared it was the best fried chicken she has ever eaten.

We all shared a beautifully dense dark chocolate tart with Mexican cinnamon ice cream for dessert. (Sadly, there is no picture of this dessert because we were too busy eating it!)

NEXT STOP: The Dismemberment Plan at Webster Hall.

The Dismemberment Plan broke up in 2003, and was a popular indie rock band in the 90s - even opening for Pearl Jam and co-headlining with Death Cab for Cutie. Other than a brief charity concert, this is the first time in eight years they have played together... so it was an eagerly anticipated and sold out show.

Can you find Gary in the crowd? Christine, Chris and I stayed up in the balcony - away from the frenzied fans.

We knew it would be an early show (over by 10:15) so we had already scoped out our LAST STOP: Momofuku Milk Bar for a post-concert snack.

Momofuku Milk Bar is amazing. Gary and I both had their "Cereal Milk", which has four ingredients: milk, corn flakes, brown sugar and salt. It is supposed to taste like the milk that's left over after eating a bowl of super sweet sugared cereal. It was perfect.

Cereal Milk

I also had a cornflake-marshmallow-chocolate chip cookie; Gary had a compost cookie (pretzels, potato chips, coffee, oats, butterscotch, chocolate chips); Christine had soft serve ice cream with cornflake crunch topping; and Chris had a slice of cinnamon bun pie with cheesecake filling and brown butter.

The shining star of this epic sugar overload, however, was the birthday cake truffles with rainbow cake crumble, sprinkles, and vanilla frosting.

Birthday Cake Truffles

The magic of these truffles is that it takes a moment after you eat them to get that ultimate "hit" of birthday cake flavor. Each order comes with three truffles, and despite their pure genius, we were so full that Gary and I had to split one, and Chris and Christine split another - leaving one truffle.

Since (in the lyrical words of Three Dog Night) one is the "loneliest number you'll ever do"- we offered our last truffle to the three outgoing and friendly gals standing across the wooden bar from us. Turns out, thanks to Christine's keen desire for cupcakes, we recognized one of them as the owner of Sweet Revenge - one of our all time favorite Greenwich Village spots, and the only "cupcake, wine and beer bar" in the city. Christine finally said something to the owner along the lines of "your cupcakes are better" and the owner blushed and thanked her. (For Christine, Sweet Revenge is a holy place of worship.) Personally, I think both Momofuku and Sweet Revenge deserve a place in the hallowed halls of Dessert Legends.

What a fantastically delicious fun-filled night!