New York City has no shortage of fried chicken, but Huli Huli Hawaiian Rotisserie is taking the Lower East Side in a decidedly more tropical direction.
Located at 43 Clinton Street, Huli Huli is a takeout-focused Hawaiian spot from the team behind East Village favorite Noreetuh. The concept keeps things simple: juicy rotisserie chicken, crunchy fried chicken, rice, Hawaiian-inspired sides and sauces—all without the kind of price tag that makes takeout feel like a luxury purchase.
The signature Huli Huli Chicken meal is just $14, and it comes with a slow-cooked chicken leg and thigh, shiitake-ginger rice, a side and your choice of sauce. That’s an increasingly rare NYC dinner where you can actually get full without first checking your banking app.
Prefer your chicken with serious crunch? The fried chicken meal also costs $14 and features boneless dark meat with cucumber and radish pickles, plus a side and sauce. The restaurant offers four sauces, including sweet chipotle-soy, spicy sambal mayo, umami scallion and ginger teriyaki.
Then there are the sides. Hawaiian macaroni salad, steamed bok choy, tofu-edamame poke, shiitake-ginger rice and furikake fries make it possible to turn a simple chicken dinner into a full-on Lower East Side feast.
And don’t sleep on the Spam musubi. Huli Huli’s version comes with furikake, sweet soy glaze and premium nori for $5. The restaurant also serves Hurricane Fries, topped with furikake, Kewpie mayo and ginger teriyaki.
The restaurant is intentionally small, with only a few stools, so Huli Huli NYC is primarily a takeout operation. That may actually be the point: grab your chicken, head home and prepare for your apartment to smell significantly better than it did 20 minutes earlier.
So if you’re searching for affordable Hawaiian food in NYC, put Huli Huli on the list.
Because sometimes the best dinner in Manhattan comes wrapped in a takeout container—and costs $14.
