Jay Rayner wrote a glowing review of this Korean restaurant, praising its 'filthy' Korean fried chicken. Apparently, KFC at its best! Who doesn't want fried chicken that's so dirty, it's good!?
Well, filthy it was but for all the wrong reasons.
We started with the Jihwaja Hansang, a sharing platter with a little bit of everything off their menu. It was a massive plate topped with what seemed like reheated frozen party finger foods from a Korean version of an Iceland supermarket. Everything tasted bland and flavourless. The jeon was mushy. The mandu deep fried and greasy. The beef galbi was like sliced pieces of shoe leather. Overall, a disappointing and borderline disgusting plate of food.
Then came the chicken. It was an entire bird, battered and fried. I was expecting perfectly crisp morsels of fried chicken tossed in a spicy, sticky sauce. Instead, we got a mass of badly chopped up chicken pieces dumped on a plate. The first piece I tried to bite into was the chicken neck. Yes, the neck. I'm Asian and have eaten a lot of iffy things but this was just bizarre. All the other pieces were covered in soggy coating that just slid off the meat. The sauce had no flavour whatsoever. I ate because I was hungry but seriously, it was some of the worst fried chicken I've ever had.
There was very little redeeming about the food. They should be embarrassed to be serving this stuff up. Even the average places in Soho puts this place to shame.
Save your money and go somewhere else. read more