Eat Gai - New York

Essex Market has a lot of stalls to choose from but Eat Gai is one of our go-to favorite. We love ordering their Pineapple chicken. It's a Hat Yai Southern Thai Fried chicken with pineapple ginger rice served in pineapple shell! The presentation is so cute. The chicken was crispy and juicy, seasoned to perfection with a blend of spices. The pineapple pieces in the ginger rice is a perfect complement, adding a burst of sweetness from the pineapple and a hint of ginger. We love the chicken so much that we also just ordered the Thai Fried chicken itself. Something about the chicken it is so soft, we we believe is the use of turmeric that paired with other spices has the chicken bold and full of flavorful. We didn't stop there we also ordered the Fried chicken Bahn MI as well. This was our first time trying Fried Chicken Bahn Mi, It was delicious taking the chicken into a sandwich with some greens, cucumbers, and sauce. We do suggest asking for more sauce due to the fact the its a little in the dry end when chewing so the sauce helps with that. Other then that it was fulfilling.

I absolutely love Hainanese chicken, so I was excited to see that Essex Market had Eat Gai as a food vendor. I made a beeline to Eat Gai as I walked into the market.I got Eat Gai's original order, which comes with Hainanese chicken, chicken flavored rice, three kinds of sauces, and melon soup. I wanted to love this place so much but my chicken was so dry that not even the sauces did much. And where is all the chicken skin? And my rice did not have much flavor, which was also surprising because I thought the very yellow color would indicate a strong chicken flavor. I did really enjoy the soup though, that was probably the only thing I enjoyed about my $12.50 meal. Very disappointing.Still, I gave 3 stars instead of 2 because I appreciate the diverse presence within the market, and the staff was very nice. Maybe I'll try the chicken wings next time if I happen to be in the area. Maybe..

Their Hainan Chicken looks really good on Yelp but it turned out to be a great disappointment. Chicken is way too over cooked, tasted like rubber and the rice is soggy, the whole chicken over rice is a disaster.Don't!!!

I had high expectation of their Hainan Chicken, unfortunately their chicken is way way overcooked and tasted like rubber. Rice is soggy, the whole thing is wrong.For the $13 a chicken over right it is totally not worth it.The sauces came with the chicken rice are not bad but not something impressing.

The fried chicken plate is a must have so flavorful without being greasy!