Bikes and fried chicken. The curse of the semi-early adopter.

VanMoof X3 (Thrice the name, thrice the pain…)

If you’ve followed my writing over the last year, you may well remember my VanMoof-related strife. My wife’s VanMoof X3 stopped working reliably thanks to a break within the motor cable, and the only way of fixing it was disassembling the entire bike. It has been a bit of a saga but the alternative was spending at least £800 (plus travel to Bristol) to get it fixed by a bike workshop familiar with VanMoof products.

After many months of poking and prodding intermittently, I was able to take the whole thing apart. There was an obvious break within the motor cable which I repaired using a crimp tool (there are neater solutions, but given the awkard location, it worked better than soldering for me). I wrapped the repaired cable in electrical tape, and some heavy duty tape to replace the sheath.

Unfortunately this is a design flaw in these bikes. Cables being stretched over sharp metal surfaces leads to strain and eventually breakage, and many S3 and X3s have suffered a similar fate.

Turns out the cable repair was the easy part. Getting the thing back together has been a little bit of a nightmare. The socket placement is very precise, and with the wiring concealed within the frame, getting it all back into place requires a minor miracle. I’ve been doing a lot of wire pulls through narrow spaces. It’s getting there, but definitely not a smooth experience all round. I would not recommend this to anyone who enjoys sanity.

Crispy Lemon Chicken

The latest in fryer updates came hot on the heels of a recent Hutong bagel. The Hutong Bagel Co. has been a regular haunt since we moved to Plymouth and I still long to have the café returned to its original sit-in configuration, but the business is thriving so clearly the current model is working for the owners.

The latest special was a crispy lemon chicken bagel evoking traditional British Chinese takeaway food. We didn’t end up getting to try it, but it did trigger my attempt at a similar dish. I brined the chicken thighs for a short time and then used the batter recipe from Hutong’s substack. The oil was set to 180 degrees Celcius, and the cooking time was around nine minutes. The first batch didn’t exactly go to plan as I left the chicken alone in the basket. Rookie mistake. The batter welded itself to the wire and I couldn’t get it out.

The second batch fared better as I agitated the chicken as soon as it went into the oil and prevented it from sticking. The result was a light and crispy batter and juicy meat within. The lemon sauce was a little bit of a fudge as I already made lemon curd last week and had plenty to use up. I added some vinegar and sweet chilli sauce to make it a bit more savoury, although I’m not sure I’m blown away by the lemon and fried chicken combination overall. It was tasty, but there are better sauces out there in my opinion (Korean fried chicken sauce, for example).

For the salad I thinly sliced carrot and cucumber and dressed it with a Lee Kum Kee peanut sauce, and served it alongside jasmine rice. It was a bit decadent for a weekday evening, but once I’ve got a food idea in my head, it’s hard to get away from it until I’ve made the food in question.