Korean fried chicken

[Greg Ling]

Tonight the sushi chef at my place took me to this korean restaurant at 5th and cheltenham by the 7eleven .

they had the usual stuff but really well prepared on the menu.bbq and hot pot but he got an order of fried chicken .My sister who is an afficianado and me bowed our heads in reverence after the first bite.The cooking ,seasoning dipping sauce and soju made it the best chicken I've hadin a long time.Gulleteers don't sleep on the bird.I'm goin for lunch the next few days.Man that was good chicken.

[herbacidal]

Tonight the sushi chef at my place took me to this korean restaurant at 5th and cheltenham by the 7eleven .

they had the usual stuff but really well prepared on the menu.bbq and hot pot but he got an order of fried chicken .My sister who is an afficianado and me  bowed our heads in reverence after the first bite.The cooking ,seasoning dipping sauce and soju made it the best chicken I've hadin a long time.Gulleteers don't sleep on the bird.I'm goin for lunch the next few days.Man that was good chicken.

←

Yea, Korean fried chicken is so good.

I like it a lot better than Chinese fried chicken.

Not sure yet how it compares to Peruvian fried chicken.

[Greg Ling]

Tonight the sushi chef at my place took me to this korean restaurant at 5th and cheltenham by the 7eleven .

they had the usual stuff but really well prepared on the menu.bbq and hot pot but he got an order of fried chicken .My sister who is an afficianado and me  bowed our heads in reverence after the first bite.The cooking ,seasoning dipping sauce and soju made it the best chicken I've hadin a long time.Gulleteers don't sleep on the bird.I'm goin for lunch the next few days.Man that was good chicken.

←

Yea, Korean fried chicken is so good.

I like it a lot better than Chinese fried chicken.

Not sure yet how it compares to Peruvian fried chicken.

←

Yo herb,give me a call and we could go with my sushi guy ,he knows all the good latenight korean joints

[mrbigjas]

Tonight the sushi chef at my place took me to this korean restaurant at 5th and cheltenham by the 7eleven .

they had the usual stuff but really well prepared on the menu.bbq and hot pot but he got an order of fried chicken .My sister who is an afficianado and me  bowed our heads in reverence after the first bite.The cooking ,seasoning dipping sauce and soju made it the best chicken I've hadin a long time.Gulleteers don't sleep on the bird.I'm goin for lunch the next few days.Man that was good chicken.

←

was that at jong ga jib, the famous soondooboo tofu place up there? or another one?

[herbacidal]

Tonight the sushi chef at my place took me to this korean restaurant at 5th and cheltenham by the 7eleven .

they had the usual stuff but really well prepared on the menu.bbq and hot pot but he got an order of fried chicken .My sister who is an afficianado and me  bowed our heads in reverence after the first bite.The cooking ,seasoning dipping sauce and soju made it the best chicken I've hadin a long time.Gulleteers don't sleep on the bird.I'm goin for lunch the next few days.Man that was good chicken.

←

Yea, Korean fried chicken is so good.

I like it a lot better than Chinese fried chicken.

Not sure yet how it compares to Peruvian fried chicken.

←

Yo herb,give me a call and we could go with my sushi guy ,he knows all the good latenight korean joints

←

Definitely in the next few weeks.

[Greg Ling]

Tonight the sushi chef at my place took me to this korean restaurant at 5th and cheltenham by the 7eleven .

they had the usual stuff but really well prepared on the menu.bbq and hot pot but he got an order of fried chicken .My sister who is an afficianado and me  bowed our heads in reverence after the first bite.The cooking ,seasoning dipping sauce and soju made it the best chicken I've hadin a long time.Gulleteers don't sleep on the bird.I'm goin for lunch the next few days.Man that was good chicken.

←

was that at jong ga jib, the famous soondooboo tofu place up there? or another one?

←

nah, this place specializes in meat,tryin to get the name but korean is hard for a chinese guy to understand

[Greg Ling]

I went again tonight and the place is called People in korean.It is apparently a outpost of a place in korea called bon chon chicken.

they have draft beer,soju and a pretty good scotch list.on the menu there is noodles from four to eight bucks ,donburi and katsu at eight and group meals like chinatown from forty to one twenty.

but its pretty much about the chicken regular or spicy ,16 wings to an order.

I got two orders and a lager to go with out knowing the price ,takes about twenty minutesfor your order .And when I got to the register to pay the waitress was like 43 dollars please,so I'm like did you mean twenty three,but she says 43.

so I just got two orders of twenty dollar wing.I mean they're great wings and all but that is expensive chicken.Apparently no one minds because this place is packed.

[orion]

I went again tonight and the place is called People in korean.It is apparently a outpost of a place in korea called bon chon chicken.

they have draft beer,soju and a pretty good scotch list.on the menu there is noodles from four to eight bucks ,donburi and katsu at eight and group meals like chinatown from forty to one twenty.

but its pretty much about the chicken regular or spicy ,16 wings to an order.

I got two orders and a lager to go with out knowing the price ,takes about twenty minutesfor your order .And when I got to the register to pay the waitress was like 43 dollars please,so I'm like did you mean twenty three,but she says 43.

so I just got two orders of twenty dollar wing.I mean they're great wings and all but that is expensive chicken.Apparently no one minds because this place is packed.

←

I filed away this post in some corner of my head for the past year and finally had occasion to seek it out last weekend. We spotted two Korean places in the shopping center by the 7/11, wandered into both and asked if they had fried chicken. Neither place did and no one claimed to know of a place in the neighborhood that did. One place looked really good and our girlfriends would have been plenty happy to stay, but my friend and I stubbornly decided to walk around the block to see if there was anything else.

We finally spotted a place on Cheltenham with large windows and brightly painted walls that seemed fairly busy despite being quite large. We stared and pointed at a group of Korean girl's table, much to their discomfort, trying to see if they were eating chicken. We went in, my friend went to their table to ask while I talked to the host. They did have fried chicken, although it wasn't the place mentioned above since it had only been open for a day. Close enough for us.

The place had a very cool vibe...nearly everyone in the restaurant was a stylish 20-something Korean, and everyone seemed to be there more for drinks than food, although the foil-covered baskets of chicken were ubiquitous. A boisterous table in a corner were celebrating a birthday with a bottle of Johnny Walked black label and a lot of chicken...not a bad idea.

The host was friendly and apologized that there were no menus yet in English and did his best to translate the menu on the wall, which didn't help very much. (I figure it's a safe bet that we were the first non-Koreans to eat there). Anyone read Korean?

We got some soju for $12:

and my friend got something called pocky maybe, a sort of ice cream soda involving what seemed to be a few pocky sticks and fruity pebbles. Looked tasty.

For the grand opening, pitchers of lager were only $6(!) which washed down an order of spicy fried chicken quite well.

(This was after we had dug in a bit already...)

I've never had Korean friend chicken before and it's as impressive as the article in the nytimes suggested a few months back: super-light and crispy, w/o the heavy greasiness that keeps me from eating American fried chicken too often. I definitely wish I could get this closer to home in South Philly!

The four of us split an order and were still somewhat hungry afterwards and wanted to try something different. We tried asking a waiter what else we could have and he suggested nachos. Hmmm...Instead I pointed at some noodles at another table and asked for those, as well as the white cubes that everyone seemed to have with their chicken.

These were called "moo," I think, and tasted pretty much like kimchee w/o the sauce. The cold, sour and salty pickled radish would have been awesome with the fried chicken...wish we had asked sooner!

The noodles came with conch and a spicy sour sauce that was pretty tasty. The conch was a little rubbery but it made pretty good drinking food as well.

All in all it was a pretty great experience, and the kind of night I really enjoy...not really having much of a clue of what I was ordering and getting a glimpse of the way another culture eats and drinks w/o having to worry about the restaurant pandering to what they think we wanted to eat. Although the waiters had some trouble communicating, they were really excited that we wanted to try something we weren't familiar with and enjoyed it when it came. And it was pretty fun being the only table in the place speaking English.

The only downside was that it was a little bit more expensive that we expected. The chicken was $20/order and the noodles were $25. Still, that's not bad considering those two dishes were more than enough to feed four of us, but with how addictive the chicken is I could easily put away an order by myself.

I'd love to know where the other place is in the neighborhood up there to try it out. In the meantime I think I will be checking out the place at Church and Chambers in NYC one of the next times I'm up there.

[Greg Ling]

There apparently a place in the food court at the 69th st. Han au Reum called Mr. Chicken that is good too.

[MarketStEl]

Monsieur Fried Chicken. (Photo in my first foodblog.) Guess I'm going to have to sample their wares on the way home some evening.

(Hmmmm. Korean fried chicken served at a place with a French name. Wassup wit dat?)

Peruvian fried chicken, Herb? Tell me more about this dish. I assume it too is available in the vicinity of the Upper Darby H-Mart.

Edited May 28, 2007 by MarketStEl (log)

[herbacidal]

Peruvian fried chicken, Herb?  Tell me more about this dish.  I assume it too is available in the vicinity of the Upper Darby H-Mart.

←

Peruvian fried chicken I have not seen in the area yet.

I've read a bit about it a year+ ago in the DC Delmarva threads about stores with people lining up out the door to get it, but never experienced it myself.

Korean and Peruvian fried chicken are on my food to-do list right now.

Only problem is, my to-do list is stagnant, with no progress made in crossing anything off. If anything it's been growing longer.

[MarketStEl]

You and me both, Herb.

That includes the two outings I've proposed elsewhere on this board.

We need to take remedial action.

[gus_tatory]

this is the place you guys are talking about, i think?

Korean fried chicken in NY Times...

it sounds awesome...

EDIT to add: i just found an awesome *illustrated* comparison shopping expedition to most of the big Korean Fried Chicken places in NY/NJ at this gentleman's blog:

Korean Fried Chicken Round-up @ Off The Broiler, by Jason Perlow.

Edited May 30, 2007 by gus_tatory (log)

[Andrew Fenton]

There apparently a place in the food court at the 69th st. Han au Reum called Mr. Chicken that is good too.

I spent some time avec le Monsieur this afternoon. Here's the six piece fried chicken, with a little dish of seasoned salt and a bowl of moo in the background:

Six pieces sounds like a lot; this is basically a wing, leg and some random bits (part of a breast, a small chunk of back) cut into near-bite-sized bits. They fry it up fresh for you; a little slow, but a nice touch.

It's good chicken, for sure. It didn't knock my socks off-- it wasn't noticeably lighter or less greasy than good American-style fried chicken, though it does have less of a coating-- but I enjoyed it. It's easy for me to believe that fried chicken from a food court isn't going to be the best example of the genre, though, so I'll be happy to give it another try.

---

At any rate, I'd never been to H-Mart, and it was worth the visit. It's clean, there's lots of good stuff for sale, and the shoppers out at 69th street are an interesting mix. Waiting in line, I was behind a Dominican woman and her young daughter, who were buying plantains and mango juice, and in front of a middle-aged white guy from the neighborhood, who said he hadn't been on that block (about four blocks from his house) for years. He was mightily impressed with H-Mart, though, and told everybody (including the manager, me, and the other folks in line) all about it.

Since I had a train ride home, I didn't get anything bulky or perishable, but I did pick up a couple of items of odd Japanese food. First, curry (comfort food for the missus):

Because nothing is more associated with "curry" than Vermont!

And next, some chocolate cylinder-shaped cookies:

I find these HIGH-larious. But then, I am very, very immature.

[Greg Ling]

Senor Pollo is not as good as the other places but a lot of posters here seem to be able to get out to 69th easier than Olney. I finally was able to make it to Soho.

It used to be a bon chon but it seems they do not have the franchise anymore.

Just as good and expensive as before.

[MarketStEl]

There apparently a place in the food court at the 69th st. Han au Reum called Mr. Chicken that is good too.

I spent some time avec le Monsieur this afternoon. Here's the six piece fried chicken, with a little dish of seasoned salt and a bowl of moo in the background:

And what, kind sir, is moo? From this angle, it looks like tiny tofu cubes.

At any rate, I'd never been to H-Mart, and it was worth the visit.  It's clean, there's lots of good stuff for sale, and the shoppers out at 69th street are an interesting mix.  Waiting in line, I was behind a Dominican woman and her young daughter, who were buying plantains and mango juice, and in front of a middle-aged white guy from the neighborhood, who said he hadn't been on that block (about four blocks from his house) for years.  He was mightily impressed with H-Mart, though, and told everybody (including the manager, me, and the other folks in line) all about it.

I'm sure you recall my posts on H-Mart in my first foodblog. The little-United-Nations character of the clientele is one of the things that appeal to me about the store.

Next time you are out this way, Andrew, you should make a point of visiting the 56th and Chestnut Freshgrocer for an international experience of a different sort. The customer base isn't as diverse as H-Mart's, but the range of products carried is -- though again from a different perspective: you will find many Caribbean items in stock here, including entire product lines I've not seen anywhere else in the city.

Note also the condition of both the store and the neighborhood surrounding it. There's a reason that both the new shopping center next to the La Salle campus in Olney and (I believe) the empty space in Progress Plaza where a Super Fresh once stood are getting Freshgrocer stores as anchors. Kudos to the suburbanite who took Penn up on its offer and learned some valuable lessons about the "inner city" food shopper that he has taken to heart.

Since I had a train ride home, I didn't get anything bulky or perishable, but I did pick up a couple of items of odd Japanese food.  First, curry (comfort food for the missus):

Because nothing is more associated with "curry" than Vermont!

Makes you wonder where foreigners pick up their place associations, doesn't it? I suspect that you'd be hard pressed to find anyone of Indian or South Asian descent anywhere in the Green Mountain State, not even in the part of Vermont that's closest to Dartmouth College (which I don't think has as large a South Asian presence as, say, Penn does anyway).

Then again, there's a pretty damned good salsa that's made in the state, Green Mountain Gringo. So who knows?

And next, some chocolate cylinder-shaped cookies:

I find these HIGH-larious.  But then, I am very, very immature.

←

What? No Pocky?

[Andrew Fenton]

And what, kind sir, is moo?  From this angle, it looks like tiny tofu cubes.

Orion described it, a few posts upthread. It's pickled daikon, I think.

And next, some chocolate cylinder-shaped cookies:

I find these HIGH-larious.  But then, I am very, very immature.

←

What? No Pocky?

Pocky is fine. But chocolate-filled tubes called "Colon"? Who could possibly pass that up, I ask you? (Fortunately, it turns out they're actually really good: crunchy, with a nice cocoa flavor.)

[Rich Pawlak]

See that's because they look like a cross-section of a really overworked, um, well, more like a section of your, ah...oh never mind.

[saluki]

I went again tonight and the place is called People in korean.It is apparently a outpost of a place in korea called bon chon chicken.

they have draft beer,soju and a pretty good scotch list.on the menu there is noodles from four to eight bucks ,donburi and katsu at eight and group meals like chinatown from forty to one twenty.

but its pretty much about the chicken regular or spicy ,16 wings to an order.

I got two orders and a lager to go with out knowing the price ,takes about twenty minutesfor your order .And when I got to the register to pay the waitress was like 43 dollars please,so I'm like did you mean twenty three,but she says 43.

so I just got two orders of twenty dollar wing.I mean they're great wings and all but that is expensive chicken.Apparently no one minds because this place is packed.

←

I filed away this post in some corner of my head for the past year and finally had occasion to seek it out last weekend. We spotted two Korean places in the shopping center by the 7/11, wandered into both and asked if they had fried chicken. Neither place did and no one claimed to know of a place in the neighborhood that did. One place looked really good and our girlfriends would have been plenty happy to stay, but my friend and I stubbornly decided to walk around the block to see if there was anything else.

We finally spotted a place on Cheltenham with large windows and brightly painted walls that seemed fairly busy despite being quite large. We stared and pointed at a group of Korean girl's table, much to their discomfort, trying to see if they were eating chicken. We went in, my friend went to their table to ask while I talked to the host. They did have fried chicken, although it wasn't the place mentioned above since it had only been open for a day. Close enough for us.

The place had a very cool vibe...nearly everyone in the restaurant was a stylish 20-something Korean, and everyone seemed to be there more for drinks than food, although the foil-covered baskets of chicken were ubiquitous. A boisterous table in a corner were celebrating a birthday with a bottle of Johnny Walked black label and a lot of chicken...not a bad idea.

The host was friendly and apologized that there were no menus yet in English and did his best to translate the menu on the wall, which didn't help very much. (I figure it's a safe bet that we were the first non-Koreans to eat there). Anyone read Korean?

We got some soju for $12:

and my friend got something called pocky maybe, a sort of ice cream soda involving what seemed to be a few pocky sticks and fruity pebbles. Looked tasty.

For the grand opening, pitchers of lager were only $6(!) which washed down an order of spicy fried chicken quite well.

(This was after we had dug in a bit already...)

I've never had Korean friend chicken before and it's as impressive as the article in the nytimes suggested a few months back: super-light and crispy, w/o the heavy greasiness that keeps me from eating American fried chicken too often. I definitely wish I could get this closer to home in South Philly!

The four of us split an order and were still somewhat hungry afterwards and wanted to try something different. We tried asking a waiter what else we could have and he suggested nachos. Hmmm...Instead I pointed at some noodles at another table and asked for those, as well as the white cubes that everyone seemed to have with their chicken.

These were called "moo," I think, and tasted pretty much like kimchee w/o the sauce. The cold, sour and salty pickled radish would have been awesome with the fried chicken...wish we had asked sooner!

The noodles came with conch and a spicy sour sauce that was pretty tasty. The conch was a little rubbery but it made pretty good drinking food as well.

All in all it was a pretty great experience, and the kind of night I really enjoy...not really having much of a clue of what I was ordering and getting a glimpse of the way another culture eats and drinks w/o having to worry about the restaurant pandering to what they think we wanted to eat. Although the waiters had some trouble communicating, they were really excited that we wanted to try something we weren't familiar with and enjoyed it when it came. And it was pretty fun being the only table in the place speaking English.

The only downside was that it was a little bit more expensive that we expected. The chicken was $20/order and the noodles were $25. Still, that's not bad considering those two dishes were more than enough to feed four of us, but with how addictive the chicken is I could easily put away an order by myself.

I'd love to know where the other place is in the neighborhood up there to try it out. In the meantime I think I will be checking out the place at Church and Chambers in NYC one of the next times I'm up there.

←

I stopped by Soho on Cheltenham Ave today and got an order to take out.

What I asked for was an order of Fried Chicken Half and Half.

It was 18 pieces --all wings and drumettes of what had to be the the best Fried Chicken I've ever eaten.

I'd love to know what the secret is.

9 pieces were mild and sweet---and the other 9 had a spicy vinegar taste. I did not have to order the Moo separately. A nice size container came with the order.

It was very definitely pickled square cut Daikon and was the perfect accompaniment.

The 18 piece size was twenty dollars and worth every penny. I am permanently

spoiled for any other fried chicken. The Chicken Seems to all have Bon Chon writter on the boxes. And the waitresses have that written on their aprons.

The only thing the chicken needs is a good beer to go with it and that's only the spicy

half.

Soho itself, is immaculately clean and pleasant with quite a few clean cut young people having desserts. ----Now if only there were somewhere in Bucks county to get this. -----Just wonderful!

[rockhopper]

There apparently a place in the food court at the 69th st. Han au Reum called Mr. Chicken that is good too.

Since I had a train ride home, I didn't get anything bulky or perishable, but I did pick up a couple of items of odd Japanese food. First, curry (comfort food for the missus):

Because nothing is more associated with "curry" than Vermont!

←

In his Nov 12, 2006 column Rick Nichols wrote

"I was taken aback a few years ago - perhaps it was because I'd just returned from a visit to Vermont - to find on the shelves of Maido, the Japanese grocery and lunch counter in Narberth, a dehydrated, boxed sauce mix called "Vermont Curry.""

As weird as a time I saw a frozen pizza at Marks and Spencer in London that was "Cincinatti style". I have no idea what Cincinatti style pizza is; served on top of spaghetti with onions on top? (three way pizza?)

[MarketStEl]

As weird as a time I saw a frozen pizza at Marks and Spencer in London that was "Cincinatti style". I have no idea what Cincinatti style pizza is; served on top of spaghetti with onions on top? (three way pizza?)

←

Maybe deep-dish?

Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago -- all those C-cities in the Midwest look alike...

[percyn]

Cincinnati Chili is served over spaghetti. A "three way" is the chili with onions and chedar.

[MarketStEl]

Vermont Curry Update:

I mentioned this product over in a discussion I started on unfortunate names for food products (the first of these: Bland Farms Vidalia Sweet Onions) over in Food Traditions & Culture, and a knowledgeable eGulleteer replied that the product is so named because of Vermont's strong association with apples.

Now the name makes sense.

[philadining]

Hit SOHO for some of the famed chicken, and I'll have to agree with the above posters:

1- It's a little pricey

2- It's worth every penny.

This is one order, half-and-half. It cost about $20, which seems a little nuts for 16 chicken wings, until you taste them. They're very meaty, juicy, and most distinctively, crisp in a way I've never encountered before. There's no real breading, but there's a light coating of flour, I think, which gives great texture when expertly fried, and also holds the sauce effectively.

The one problem with the half-and-half order is that it's pretty hard to eyeball the difference between the hot and sweet ones. We just randomly enjoyed both, but if it's important, you might want two separate orders. The hot had a nice kick, but wasn't painfully spicy, while the sweet ones were a pleasant respite from the burn. There seemed to be two additional varieties on the menu, I've already forgotten what they are... garlic? something else... Oh darn, we'll have to go back to check them out.

As you can see, they're pretty standard-sized chicken wings, but somehow seem more substantial. They were served with the crisp, cooling cubes of "Moo" and a small salad of shredded lettuce with a thousand-island-ish dressing. Nothing thrilling, but again, nice for countering the spice if you've got a big pile of hot ones.

There's a fairly extensive menu of other items, ranging from typical Korean stews, to a weird version of nachos. Overall, it looks like various food to eat while drinking. And indeed, I can imagine that sitting for a few hours, drinking beer and/or Soju, wolfing down those wings, would be quite enjoyable. As Greg discovered, pricey, but enjoyable...

We were seated at one of several couch areas, with two fancy-looking soft couches facing one another with a low table in between. Very comfortable, and fine for this kind of food. There are some more conventional tables and chairs off in a side room.

I'm going back to try some of the other chicken, maybe more of the menu. And maybe I won't drive next time, I'm thinking that those wings probably just get better with several beers...

[Holly Moore]

Anyone have any idea how well these travel when packed to go?