If there’s one culture we Filipinos have embraced the most in the last few years, it has to be Korean. From television dramas and music to K-pop idols, Filipinos have become totally crazy about anything from South Korea.
So it came as no surprise that when KyoChon, Korea’s leading chicken restaurant chain, finally opened its doors, Filipinos were more than excited to line up and finally taste Korea’s best fried chicken.
KyoChon started the entire Korean fried chicken craze in the region when it began serving its signature chicken dishes in 1991. It has since gone worldwide with almost 1,000 branches in the US, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, and the Philippines.
Light, hearty recipe
Unlike ordinary fried chicken, Korean-style fried chicken is fried twice, making the skin crunchier and less greasy. KyoChon’s thin batter and double frying method also remove excess oil and offer a clean and light taste.
The secret of crispy but moist chicken is KyoChon’s 20-year know-how, with KyoChon’s oil used exclusively for deep-frying. For the best taste, KyoChon sticks to its standard recipe.
“Double-frying and piece-by-piece sauce-coating are time-consuming, but these are necessary processes for our hearty nutritious chicken,” said Chanky Tiangco, marketing manager of KyoChon Philippines.
“This distinguishes us from other fast-food restaurants. Because we value quality ingredients and customer’s health, we only serve honest, healthy chicken and use all-natural ingredients,” she said.
According to Tiangco, they don’t stock frozen chicken and they cook only upon order using homegrown ingredients. By naturally aging the meat without curing, they are also able to serve chicken with the lowest amount of sodium compared with those sold by their counterparts.
Which KyoChon Chicken are you?
KyoChon’s menu came to perfection through the combination of good ingredients grown by the wind, sunlight and soil, state-of-the-art facilities and their specialists’ endless research and passion.
KyoChon is proud of the best, unrivalled taste, made from all natural ingredients.
The KyoChon Chicken comes in four variant series—Original (KyoChon), Honey, Spicy (Red), and Soonsal.
The Original series is light and slightly salty with the crunchy and crispy chicken coated in KyoChon’s exclusive soy garlic glaze.
Sweet and sticky but never runny, the Honey series is marinated for 24 hours in a special seasoning, then fried to perfection and coated with natural honey sauce.
Some like it hot, and for them there’s the KyoChon Red series. Glazed with the original hot sauce made from Korea’s hottest red chilli peppers, this one is recommended only for the brave ones.
Looking for something that is truly unique? Try the KyoChon Soonsal series—boneless chicken breast strips coated in special rice batter that comes with a choice of three dipping sauces. You can order it in soy Soonsal, Soonsal Rice Bowl, and for a truly healthy meal there’s Soonsal Salad.
Besides its trademark chicken, KyoChon also serves Green Salad with Grilled Chicken (with choice of blueberry or orange dressing), side dishes like wedge potato, pickled radish and rice cake soup and an assortment of drinks like the KyoChon Special Cold Tea, Plum Sparkling Tea, Yuza Sparkling Tea, as well as barley, corn, and green tea that goes well with any meal.
Keeping promise
KyoChon lives by its three promises: “First, we won’t make fast food. Second, we only use natural ingredients and, third, we only make healthy chicken with honesty,” says Tiangco.
“But now it’s time to fulfill a fourth promise we made last year—and that is to let fans of KyoChon meet one of KyoChon’s biggest fans—Lee Min Ho!”
For the past months, KyoChon held a promo that offered fans a chance to meet the Korean superstar in person. Thousands of fans joined the contest, posting their pictures on Facebook hoping for a chance to be part of Lee Min Ho’s Fun Meet which was held during KyoChon’s grand opening at the Greenhills Theatre Mall on Feb. 24.
KyoChon has branches located at Greenhills Theatre Mall, Greenhills Shopping Center, SM Megamall, SM City Fairview, and soon at Eastwood Citywalk.
