BESSOU
ADDRESS: 25 11th Avenue, New York, NY 10011
WEBSITE: https://bessou.nyc/
I took a trip back to New Jersey to visit my parents over Father’s Day weekend, and stayed a couple of extra days afterwards before I went down to the D.C. area. For one of those extra days, we went out to New York City to spend a day out exploring Manhattan. One of our stops ended up being to Market 57, which was a food hall curated by The James Beard Foundation at Pier 57, before we stopped over at a park called Little Island next door. The food hall had an eclectic mix of different cuisines to choose from, but the one that stood out for me was called Bessou, serving up Japanese karaage.
Their menu seemed pretty straightforward: your choice of quantity of Japanese fried chicken, with selection of dipping sauce. They also offered a number of different sushi crispy rice appetizers as well, along with a fried chicken sando. For some reason, I was really in the mood for just straight-up fried chicken, so I decided to go with the 3-piece order, pairing it with the Sweet Miso BBQ and Spicy Mayo dipping sauces. Because I’ve also gotten into a crispy rice kick as well, I also put in an order of the Spicy Tuna Crispy Rice to give that a shot.
Given that we were at the food hall right around 11:30AM, it was before the main lunch crowd started to hit. (By the time we were leaving around a half hour later, the entire place was packed.) This definitely worked to my advantage, as the food didn’t take too long at all to come out. Seating also wasn’t an issue either, with a number of tables that were spread out across the food hall. My parents decided to go with some food from a Thai vendor that was nearby, and we linked up after we got all of our food.
I decided to start things off with the crispy rice, a triangular wedge that had a heaping scoop of spicy tuna on top. A good amount of yuzu tobiko was also placed on top as a nice garnish to the whole thing as well. I will say that with that towering height of the crispy rice stack, it made it more difficult to try to fit a full bite with the rice, tuna, and fish roe all at once. I gave it my best attempt, but I’m pretty sure I probably missed out on the tobiko. I enjoyed the crispy rice with the texture contrast between the rice and the fish, in addition to the temperature difference of hot and cold between the ingredients as well.
It was time to move on to the fried chicken, which seemed to be the main draw for Bessou, based on their menu. To my surprise, I opened the box and found that my 3-piece order ended up turning into a 4-piece order, so that was a mini win. I could see the crispy breading on the outside of the chicken, and it produced a nice crunch when I bit into it. The inside, however, was still tender and moist, which were definitely great attributes for karaage. Between the two dipping sauces, I liked the spicy mayo better, as I thought that it complemented the chicken more than the sweet miso BBQ did. The miso BBQ was still good, and had that earthy flavor you’d expect from miso. But I didn’t think that it was sweet enough to counterbalance the miso flavor.
I don’t know if it was because I had been thinking about fried chicken, but out of all the options that day, there was definitely something that drew me to try Bessou that day. The spicy tuna crispy rice and the karaage were definitely two very different flavor profiles to mix together for lunch, and I thought that it was just the right balance for amount of food. It certainly was pricey though — about $20 total for both items; I imagine some of that pricing was driven by setting up shop at such a prime location as Market 57. I’d certainly be open to going back again and giving some of their other dipping sauces and items a try.
Let’s now take a look at the Bessou Dish Spotlight. Asterisks (*) below mark my recommended dishes.
** Spicy Tuna Crispy Rice **
Crispy rice wedge topped with spicy tuna and yuzu tobiko.
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** Japanese Chicken Karaage **
Chicken thigh pieces breaded and deep-fried. Pictured with spicy mayo and sweet miso BBQ dipping sauces.
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And finally, here are my rankings for Bessou:
Food: 4.5 / 5
The karaage delivered, with the crisp texture on the outside and tenderness on the inside. It complemented well with both the dipping sauces as well as the crispy rice appetizer. There’s also a good variety on the menu between the dipping sauces, crispy rice options, and chicken sandos as well to give you more things to try.
Atmosphere: N/A
The Market 57 food hall felt really modern and I liked how there was plenty of natural light coming into the space from the way they designed the exterior. Given the open nature of the seating, this category isn’t something I would grade.
Service: 4.25 / 5
Even with being one of the few customers that they were serving that early in the lunch hour, I was able to get my food in a relatively quick amount of time, probably no more than five minutes or so.
Price: 4 / 5
For the amount of food that I got, $20 definitely seems like quite a bit, especially for lunch. But given the location of where the food stand is located, I’m pretty sure that also played a part in the pricing.
Overall:
12.75 / 15
(85%)
Categories: New York, Restaurants
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