Korea – Baked “Fried” Chicken Restaurant

Restaurant: Baked “Fried” Chicken Restaurant (Not actual name, but I can’t read Korean)
Cuisine: Korean/Fusion/American
Last visited: Apirl 7, 2010
Location: Seoul, Korea
Address: n/a
Price Range: $10-20CAD

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 5
Service: n/a
Ambiance: 3
Overall: 4
Additional comments:

• Korean “gourmet” version of KFC
• Quick, fast, cheap
• Healthy “fried” chicken
• All chicken in baked
• No deep fryer
• Only in Korea
• Open late
• Very casual
• Fresh, made upon order

**Recommendations: n/a

We came to this restaurant in Seoul, Korea for some late night munchies. It’s open late and it’s a very popular chain restaurant in Korea. It’s famous for it’s chicken which is baked but tastes totally fried! It’s like the Korean version of Kentucky Fried Chicken except it’s not really considered “fast food”. It’s more “high end” and it’s still a sit-down restaurant…so it’s not as casual as McDonald’s or anything. There is service and you do get plated appetizers etc.

The food is nothing fancy and reminds me of pub food. It’s quite limited with different versions of their famous chicken with different seasonings and sauces.

On the table:

Yogurt Chicken Salad – Chicken – 5/6, Salad – 1.5/6

• Yogurt Chicken Salad (easily feeds 2) $19.90 CAD
• This is what we ordered and what the menu showed…little did I know this is what it actually was…

• Let’s start with the salad…my initial reaction: “What the f is that?!?! Is that ICE CREAM?! Or yogurt?…and why is it on my salad? (I mentally ‘ew’d’ to avoid being rude…it totally threw me off)
• My friend suggested that it would do really well in Vancouver, but I think people would think it’s f-ing gross…whether you agree/disagree, your comments are welcome!

• This was almost as ‘weird’ as eating LIVE octopus…but on a totally different level…I was prepared for that one though…I was not prepared for this.
• Not only was there 3 pretty big scoops of vanilla ice cream on the salad but there was also “yogurt” salad dressing that tasted like Ranch salad dressing on the salad. There was definitely dried herbs (perhaps Oregano) in the salad dressing as well.
• To be honest the ice cream and salad together didn’t taste bad. It was quite refreshing…but WITH the salad dressing…yeah that didn’t work well for me.
• It was tangy and sweet, but not in a compatible way. It almost tasted sour so I felt like I was eating spoiled food. Without the dressing it was actually not bad.

• The baked chicken on the other hand was awesome!
• It tastes totally deep-fried, but it’s not and that’s the selling point. None of the chicken is ever deep-fried.
• It’s super crispy and crunchy and it’s because they double coat it with a flour batter.
• This is definitely Asian style fried chicken because they use a thin cutlet of dark meat that’s pretty fatty with the skin and all. It was super juicy and tender because of it.

• These are the appetizers (pickles and pickled radish) and sauces you get served with your chicken.
• You can choose from wasabi mayo, chili sauce or sweet Thai chili sauce. The favourites are wasabi mayo and the sweet Thai chili.