Best Chicken

The browning of a chicken is an essential skill; just ask Julia Child. (Well, you could have asked her until a few months ago, anyway.) Mom told us the keys to a well-browned bird: Use quality olive oil, enhanced with butter; let the pieces warm to room temperature so they brown evenly; and dry the skin first with paper towels. Got that? Now we don't know exactly what Ali Baba Cafe does to concoct its "Golden Chicken"; we just know it's the most excellent chicken, a minor poultry miracle. The menu describes it as rotisserie chicken, but it's nothing like the squishy-textured stuff you get at fast-food joints. It's a half-chicken, and the skin, finished under the broiler, is perfectly crisp and spiked with garlic, lemon and spices; beneath it, the tender flesh is bursting with the flavor of...chicken. Yeah. Some chicken does have flavor. Try it with a side of fluffy rice pilaf or hummus; just get it when it's hot, because it isn't quite the same when it's steamed for a while in the takeout box.