NVM Review

By Warren Rojas

Don’t let the sign fool you: I’ve never seen anyone at Edy’s lift so much as a single morsel of steak to their lips.

The widely loved chicken joint certainly has steak on the menu. But the steady trickle of rotisserie chicken-toting customers—a constituency which ranges from extended Peruvian families to armies of famished contruction workers—confirms that founder Edy Dernovsek’s bread and butter is spice-rubbed bird.

The modish diner the restaurant currently calls home boasts a quartet of rotisserie ovens devoted to turning out their secretly spiced poultry (only Dernovsek and her son are privy to the rub recipe). The other half of the establishment serves as a coffee shop/bakery counter stocked with global treats brought in from My Bakery & Café, Inc. and Clement’s Pastry Shops in Hyattsville, Md.

The signature bird wears spice-stained skin infused with woodsy overtones. Rough patches can display an almost jerky-like tenacity, but the herb-infused meat usually leans toward the tender side.

Fried yucca is crunchy, blond and lightly seasoned (perhaps my favorite of the bunch).

The spice-infused mayonnaise is frothy and vaguely sweet. Meanwhile, an oily hot sauce performs like pesto cut with nitro glycerin (pureed hot peppers grab your throat from the get-go and never ease up).

When I ask about the dueling alfajores displayed on the front counter of the in-house sweet shop, a kindly bakery attendant explains that the smaller, flatter versions track the traditional Peruvian style (classic sugar cookie hugging dulce de leche) while the plumper, golden versions are Columbian (rolled coconut is a dead giveaway).