We ate a decent amount of fried chicken in Seoul. This is, of course, the decent thing to do: fried chicken is an iconic Korean food. I’ve already reported on a more old-school-style fried chicken meal eaten at the Cheongnyangni traditional market. We also ate fried chicken in other market settings and also from the occasional street food stall on the go. This report, however, is on a meal at an outpost of a fried chicken chain, perhaps the most prominent one of them all: Kyochon. Established in 1991, Kyochon now has many, many franchise locations in South Korea and beyond, including a few in the US—though I believe the ones in the US are directly operated by the company. We ate at the location closest to us, not too far from the Bukchon Hanok Village. Here’s how it went.

Unsurprisingly, the feel of the place is very far away from the traditional fried chicken shops in markets. This is a chain operation and it looks and feels like any other quick service chain operation, which is to say, more than a little antiseptic, though not unattractive. You order at your table and pay at the counter when done. The menu offers a variety of chicken options and more besides. On the chicken front the main choices to make are of the flavours you want and then the cuts of chicken you want them in. The flavour options here—for all I know they vary by location—were the Original Garlic-Soy, Honey (sweet), Red (spicy), and Black Secret (seemingly a new offering). Since it seemed rude to choose between them, we got some of each. There are various permutations and combinations in which you can get them. We got the Honey in boneless form and the rest as drumsticks and wings. And we got some side dishes: fried potato wedges, cheese balls and two orders of fried rice, one with scrambled eggs and one with garlic.

The food came out pretty fast and all of it was very good. Both the fried potatoes and the cheese balls were a hit with the younger generation who’d wanted them and the older people really liked the fried rice, especially the garlic-fried rice. The chicken ranged from very good (the honey) to excellent (all the others). We were a group of five and each chicken variant was at least one person’s favourite (mine was the Black Secret, which features five-spice powder). A couple of soft drinks rounded out the meal.

For a look at the space, the menu and what we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and for thoughts on the experience as a whole.

My credit card statement tells me all of this cost just about $60. Which is pretty good considering the kids can put fried chicken away at an adult level. Indeed, we took some leftovers home. Well, I suppose if we hadn’t had the two fried rices, we might have finished all the chicken, but I’m glad we did as both were very good. Service was less good. There was one gent serving the front and though the place was not busy at all—for the second half of the meal we were the only table occupied—he was not just the usual Korean restaurant stand-offish but actively unfriendly and on one occasion even rude. Maybe he was having a bad day—we found it more amusing than anything else.

How did the fried chicken compare to that at Cheongnyangni market? Well, it’s not in the same style. The chicken here is dipped in batter for an ultra-crisp crust and very hot insides on the first few bites. As far as the flavours go, I think I preferred the plain fried chicken dipped in seasoned salt and spicy sauce at the Cheongnyangni restaurant to all of these but I’d probably put all of these bar the honey over the other options at the other place. But all of it was very good fried chicken. The best we ate, however, was on the go at another market a few days after this meal. More on that later.

Alright, my next food report will also be from Seoul and will see a return to Namdaemun Market where I finally ate at Hairtail Alley. That’ll be on Thursday. More mezcal tomorrow.