here is maybe nothing else I find more sublime than crispy chicken skin. Golden, oily, and succulent, it is to me the very best part of the bird. And if nothing else, the yakitori set at dancerobot, served only on Wednesdays, is a riotous celebration of chicken skin. But it is also so much more.
At $35, this is a stunningly good deal considering the amount of labor that goes into creating the set, the price point of dancerobot’s menu (where appetizer crudos hover around $22 and a katsu curry platter costs $28), and how much food you get (enough for two to have a light dinner).
A generous ribbon of chicken skin is laced onto one skewer. Another is stacked with plump chicken thigh nuggets painted with pineapple tare (a soy glaze with caramel notes) and interspersed with grilled shishito peppers. One plate is devoted to tebasaki, or Nagoya-style chicken wings lacquered with orange tare and spiked with fragrant, citrusy-peppery yuzu kosho scallion oil. Next to those, a crisp monaka rice wafer — ordinarily stuffed with ice cream or red bean paste — is filled with chicken liver mousse and pickled persimmons.
To wash it down, there’s a bowl of spicy, deeply nourishing chicken broth, hit with the bright tang of yuzu juice.
This multi-plate, whole-chicken experience is the solo project of Stina Betz, 32, dancerobot’s executive sous chef. She spends Friday or Saturday night breaking down eight chickens, while the rest of the kitchen executes dinner service.
Putting yakitori on the menu was a joint decision between Betz and executive chef Justin Bacharach, whom Betz met as a line cook at Royal Izakaya. She followed him to dancerobot a year ago. The special, according to Bacharach, started as an attempt to draw some happy hour revelers away from Center City Sips and into dancerobot.
My very favorite part of the set is the rice bowl, with steamed koshihikari rice topped with niku miso, a condiment or side that’s made of seasoned ground meat — in this case, the rest of the Pennsylvania golden chicken. “The skin is really golden and the meat is a deeper red than a normal chicken,” said Betz of these free-range heritage birds, whose flaxen skin is thanks to a diet rich with organic yellow corn.
Crispy bits of chicken skin are mixed into the niku miso. It packs a little heat that is tempered by mixing it into the floral steamed rice. It’s rich in umami and remarkably chicken-y: “I salt everything for a few days and when the chicken cures, the flavor is so intense,” said Betz.
Betz butchers eight chickens every week (enough for 16 yakitori sets), neatly separating their parts, roasting their bones, making a stock that takes 14 hours to cook, grinding up the meat for niku miso, and roasting everything else individually.
“The set has evolved a lot,” said Betz. “I’m finally at a place where every single piece of the chicken is reflected in it.”
You’ll find bits and pieces of other golden chickens scattered about dancerobot’s menu, as their new hamburg set is also simmered in its rich stock. But only on their yakitori set will you find an utterly fanatical approach to celebrating every part of the chicken, and of course, that marvelous chicken skin.
