Speaking of roast chickens, the roast chicken from Gelson’s is really good and for $10, you can take the bones home too.
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Or if you can buy two for the price of one at costco with their 4.99 chickens. Apparently they lose a ton of dough each year using the chickens as a loss leader.
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Q. This question is from a reader. The $79 roast chicken on your menu is presented tableside, then carved in the kitchen. Why can’t you take the carcass home at the end of the meal?
A. If we gave the carcass away, then we wouldn’t be producing the sauce for the chicken. It’s a fragile ecosystem. The carcass question doesn’t happen that often. The “where is the rest of the chicken?” misconception happens a lot. We sell about 80 chickens a night and a lot of people want to know “where is the rest of my chicken?”
Just want to take this platform to say: we’re serving the entire chicken.
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lol “fragile ecosystem” immediately turns me off to ever eating at their restaurant…
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wow, that’s disappointing to read as i’d argue you get about 40% of the chicken from the whole bird. basically calling it a whole chicken would be wrong.
republique’s chicken is vastly superior and i’d argue you get much more chicken for the half at $39 than what you get at nomad.
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The LA dish looks like the same basic preparation minus the foie gras. They present the whole bird, then take it back and finish cooking the legs.
https://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/one-dish-at-the-nomad/
ok, even IF you were served the whole chicken including all scraps and bones and whatnot, why would you want to spend $100 for a chicken? I can think of a 100 better ways to spend $100 on food than a roast chicken, foie gras or not.
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I mean I paid $100 for the chicken @ Momofuku but that fed 4 people with leftovers.
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Sure except that the Costco roast chicken doesn’t taste very good imo. But it is a great way to feed a lot of people on the cheap.
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Zuni’s whole chicken for two is currently $58, but it’s a much less labor-intensive dish with no luxury ingredients.
I will gladly pay twice as much for Zankou, every time.
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Esp if you get it from Trader Joe’s. 
That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Not all, but some successful NYC restauranteurs struggle in L.A. Some end up working it out. But I don’t think they do enough research.
I tend to pull the meat off it and use it for different dishes, but that is a fair point.
The zankou near my house has recently been putting out subpar chickens they have been dry and the only thing that helps is their addictive garlic sauce.
This probably has to with produce 
accessibility. California has better access. Which is another thing that gives L.A. restaurants the edge.
Pomme Purée & Baby Leeks for me please!
I’ve had the NYC version, and with the foie, it’s passable. But I would always tell friends that Nomad’s chicken is only “decent” because of the thin layer of foie; the actual chicken part was pretty dry, flavorless, and mediocre.
Now we know why they changed the title from Chicken Whole-roasted to Roast Chicken.
I think s/he was being a little tongue-in-cheek. Or should I say chicken… snort, snort.