An analogue desire in a digitised world
A Vittles Review: D&K Gambian Roast Chicken and Rice is London’s next best rotisserie chicken. Words by Jonathan Nunn.
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Vittles Reviews is a column dedicated to critical reviews of London restaurants, written by Jonathan Nunn.
You can read the previous reviews below:
Extraordinary Ordinariness at Uncle Wrinkle
The Last Guardians of Beef Dripping Fish and Chips - Molesey Fish Bar, Knight’s Fish Bar and Marlow Fish Bar
At Peace With Change on Green Lanes - Köfteci Metin
Crispy bhajia and the golden thread of true quality - Tulsi
There’s a Thin Line Between Heaven and Hell - Asian Harvest Butchers
An analogue desire in a digitised world
D&K Gambian Roast Chicken and Rice is London’s next best rotisserie chicken
Around forty times a day, seven days a week, Dembo Konteh will stop what he is doing, put on his blue gloves and lever down one of six rotating spikes at the stall he runs outside a small DIY shop in sight of Wanstead Park Overground station. He will ask, around forty times each day, “spicy or non spicy?” before sliding down a whole, blackened bird, chopping it in two with scissors to reveal a coarse lining of thyme, then placing it in a foil sleeve. If you have ordered potatoes – and you should order them – he will scoop up a handful of boiled new potatoes, and baste them in the incarnadine drippings which have gathered in a shallow pool at the bottom of the grill, before putting them in the same bag. He will add more generous spoonfuls of the red oil, then find another sleeve to place the first, already oily, sleeve in, before wrapping it all in a plastic bag. Finally, he will add the whole thing to another plastic bag, to quadruple check there are no leakages. He will do this, forty times a day, until there is nothing left. Sherlock Holmes had his three-pipe-problem, but at D&K Gambian Roast Chicken and Rice, Konteh has invented the four-bag-chicken.
