When eating IS the workout
Story and Photo by Michael Welch
I am a sweaty puddle of joy. And it’s all because of a spicy, crunchy, tender sandwich.
If you are a long time reader of this magazine you know that I love sandwiches. I think they should be their own food group in the USDA nutritional pyramid. It goes something like fats and oils, vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy, and then sandwiches. We should eat at least one sandwich a day in my recommendation of a good diet.
I also really love fried chicken. So when I heard that chef and winemaker Christopher Bates and his wife Isabel Bogadtke were opening up a fried chicken sandwich place on Linden Street in Geneva, near their world famous restaurant FLX Table, I wondered if they were creating this business as a way to get me to move to there. I’ve been many times and have made special trips just to get my fix. It’s a good thing I don’t live closer.
Being a purist, I always order the original, called the Plain Jane with the “Dressed” options. But on a recent trip, I ran into a friend in the wine industry (Frybird is the go-to lunch spot for people in the FLX food and wine business) who highly recommended I try the K-style, a fried chicken sandwich with house made kimchi, miso mayo and cilantro. Feeling adventurous, I took her advice.
My order showed up and I knew I was going to need a strategy. This was a beast of a sandwich, with a thick, classic poppy seed roll, a huge chunk of crispy fried thigh meat, pungent red kimchi and dripping creamy mayo sauce. I ordered a glass of Finger Lakes dry Riesling, rolled up my sleeves and got started. I had to turn the sandwich clockwise with every bite, making my way to the middle. But the structure held up, as a good sandwich should, and every bite was amazing.
A nice touch at Frybird is the unlimited supply of paper towels serving as napkins. The spice of the kimchi was just hot enough that I had to keep wiping my face and there were dark stains all over my shirt. By time I finished I was as sweaty as when I run six miles and I was deliriously happy. A sandwich that lets me skip a workout and feel like I got some exercise? Thanks, FLX Frybird. There’s a bunch of other delicious sounding items on the menu but I am going to stick with the K-style until I get so skinny that I need to put some weight back on.
18 Linden Street, Geneva, 315-789-1613, flx-frybird.com
This article originally appeared in the May/June 2019 edition of the magazine.
