By Michelle Woo
Photographs by Eric Sueyoshi
There’s a new type of KFC in town and it ain’t from Kentucky. KoreAm bites into the pipin’ hot trend of Korean fried chicken.
It’s dinnertime on a Saturday and a digital banner above the counter at Los Angeles’ Kyochon Chicken states in Korean that fried chicken will take approximately 40 minutes to make. A few customers squat down in front of the cramped, fast food-style restaurant, eagerly waiting for their orders.
My companions and I are prepared. Ever since New York Times food writer Julia Moskin explored the buzz over the new KFC — Korean fried chicken, that is — a few months ago, the craze has spread beyond the Big Apple to the West Coast. Food posting sites warned that getting a taste of what Moskin described as “crunchy, spicy, perfectly non-greasy chicken” wouldn’t be easy. Luckily, we called ahead.
These aren’t the fluffy, battered drumsticks and thighs that come in a bucket, explains Cicely Wedgeworth, editor of online food digest ChowNews, who ventured to the same Kyochon location shortly after it first opened in May. Despite waiting two hours for an order of the original and the spicy wings, she left full, happy and excited to share her findings.
“I usually have an aversion to fried chicken and its flabby, nasty skin,” Wedgeworth says. “This chicken is perfectly crisp. It has this addicting flavor. It’s so tasty.”
Korean fried chicken first hatched in New York about a year ago. In the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, home to a thriving Asian restaurant district, there are four joints on the same street and block: Kyochon Chicken, Kyedong Chicken, Bon Chon Chicken and Cheogajip Chicken (cheogajip translates as “mother-in-law’s home”). All have bright, cartoon-y signs, lengthy wait times, and freshly made fried chicken pieces ready to be packaged in red, orange or yellow cardboard to-go carriers. (You can also dine in, but seating is often limited.)
“Ours is very crispy on the outside and not too buttery,” says Raymond Cho, manager of Flushing’s Bon Chon Chicken. “We get the sauce from Korea. We don’t dip the chicken in sauce; we brush it. It’s a new way of cooking.”
Sang Moon, company spokesman for Flushing’s Cheogajip Chicken, says that Cheogajip uses only fresh chickens, which are delivered daily and pressure-cooked to order.
The tasty trend emerged in Korea in the early ‘90s, not long after Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants began cropping up throughout the country. Kyochon, founded in 1991, is said to have developed the Korean chicken frying technique, a multi-step process much different than the one poultry-loving Americans have followed for generations.
With American-style fried chicken, to get that crumbly brown crust, large pieces of chicken are soaked in a breading mixture. But after that, the process gets tricky. Moskin explained the common frying dilemma: “Too often, the flesh is still raw when the crust is cooked, or the skin never cooks all the way through, leaving a flabby layer of skin between the meat and the crust,” she wrote in her February food feature.
The Kyochon technique is unique in several ways. First, the chicken is hacked up “Chinese-style” into small, indistinguishable pieces. The unseasoned chicken is then placed in a fryer, removed to cool and then fried again. This “slow-cook method” transforms the fat into a thin and crackly crust. The chicken is then brushed with seasoning — “soy sauce, garlic and 20 different ingredients,” a Kyochon flier advertises.
“The sauce is very different from American sauce,” says Lyn Yoo, a manager at Kyochon, who recently moved from Seoul to Los Angeles. She says that in Korea, she would have Kyochon chicken delivered to her home at least twice a month.
The savory chicken is a variation of traditional tongdak, a snack often served at bars with beer. Tongdak, which means “whole chicken,” is fried and served on a plate with little dishes of salt, pepper, chili sauce or jalapeno slices on the side. Eaten as a meal or a snack, tongdak is served with mu, or pickled radish, to cool the palate. Korean fried chicken restaurants also make it a point to serve mu as a complimentary side. Kyochon offers other dishes such as ddeokbokgi (spicy rice cakes), mozzarella sticks and fries, but most reviewers suggest that you just stick with the chicken.
Joe McPherson, who moved to Seoul in 2004, says he sees about two restaurants serving Korean fried chicken on every block. In Korea, there are now more than 1,050 Kyochon locations, more than 1,200 Cheogajip Chicken locations and other mega-chains yet to make their way to the States. One such chain is BBQ (pronounced B-B-Q, not barbecue), which aims to be the “McDonald’s of chicken” with more than 1,500 locations throughout the country and its own Chicken University, a management training center located in the Gyeonggi Province.
“It’s not even a trend anymore,” says McPherson, 33, who grew up in Alabama, where fried chicken was a food staple. “It’s part of the culture. You’ll see young people eating it late at night with beer or families ordering it as a meal.”
McPherson tried recreating the fried chicken at home, using ingredients such as flour, garlic powder, sugar and black pepper.
“It tasted pretty good,” he says. “My girlfriend liked it.”
One of the joys of Korean fried chicken, he says, is that when you reheat it later on, it’s just as delectable.
Many of these fried chicken companies like to promote the so-called health benefits of their products. A few years ago, BBQ began plugging its Calcium Fried Chicken. Now, it advertises that its chicken is fried in 100-percent olive oil, with big cans of olive oil displayed outside their stores.
Such claims are promoted similarly in the U.S. “Garlic prevents cancer, cold, asthma and heart diseases. Hot sauce contains Vitamin A and C which are good for skin care and healthy diet,” reads a sign posted at Bon Chon in New York.
Fried chicken in general has gotten a bad wrap. Last year, KFC was sued over its use of trans fat, which increases the risk of heart disease. The company now fries its chicken in trans fat-free soybean oil. Several Korean fried chicken companies claim to do the same.
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Back at Kyochon in L.A., a teenage boy wearing a bright orange visor and polo shirt brings us our order: two whole chickens, $16 each, and a large order of hot wings, $16. At first glance, the chicken looks slightly oily, but not drenched. The original recipe has a toasted texture and a garlicky, slightly sweet taste. The spicy version was robust and mouth-numbing for some, who gulped cups of ice water after each bite. For me, each piece was richly flavored, perfectly crispy and delicious.
Staring at our mountains of crumpled napkins and our containers piled with bones, we were content. The verdict: finger lickin’ good.
