‘One of the best chefs in the world’ opens hot chicken restaurant in Boise
If you happened to read the Los Angeles Times last week, you noticed an eye-grabbing headline: “One of the best chefs in the world just opened a hot chicken restaurant in Glendale.”
Even more striking if you live 800 miles northeast? The article’s last sentence: “He plans to open a location in Boise, Idaho ... .”
The kitchen guru is Michael Mina, “the James Beard Award-winning chef behind 35 restaurants around the world,” as the Times noted.
Tokyo Hot Chicken, one of his newest concepts, made its Idaho debut at 4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16.
Although it will serve Boise, Tokyo Hot Chicken technically is setting up shop in Meridian. It’s a tenant at Crave Collective, 2900 W. Excursion Blvd. Crave’s virtual kitchens concoct gourmet eats in a 15,000-square-foot facility at Ten Mile Crossing. Mina has two other concepts planned at Crave’s 16-suite operation.
Like other Crave restaurants, Tokyo Hot Chicken will offer delivery and takeout. There’s no on-site dining. Customers order food using the Crave Delivery app. Delivery costs $4.99 and can include multiple Crave eateries. Tokyo Hot Chicken will be open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. Crave Delivery is available in Boise, Meridian, Eagle, Nampa, Caldwell, Kuna and Star.
Mina’s hot chicken uses the popular Southern cuisine as a starting point for fusion. “It’s spicy chicken,” Mina told the Times, “but it’s obviously not Nashville hot chicken. It’s a play on it, with some fun Japanese flavor profiles.”
Togarashi is one of the main spices turbocharging the crispy, fried bird, which comes in buckets (a mix of drums, wings and thighs), as tenders, or loaded onto “snacker” sandwiches with kimchi slaw and Kewpie mayonnaise. Add zip with housemade dipping sauces ranging from Yum Yum Sauce (with Kewpie mayo and furikake) and Chukka Tare (with soy, sesame and chili) to Tokyo Secret Hot Sauce (with chili and yuzu).
Side dishes include furikake french fries, togarashi Parker House-style rolls, red miso corn and wasabi mashed potatoes.
Prices were not immediately available, but the Tokyo Hot Chicken menu in San Diego should provide ballpark figures. A four-piece bucket with choice of one side and sauce is $12.99; a 12-piece bucket with three sides and sauces is $33.99. Sides range from $3.99 to $5.99.
With Korean fried chicken restaurants popping up in Boise, Tokyo Hot Chicken will be another way for Idahoans to expand their poultry palates into a spicier part of the universe.
The difference? This tasty version comes from a chef whose flagship restaurant in San Francisco has a Michelin star.
This story was originally published November 12, 2020 at 4:00 AM.