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EAT THIS IMMEDIATELY: Korean fried chicken at Meju
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EAT THIS IMMEDIATELY: Korean fried chicken at Meju
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| Photos | Drew Lazor | |
If you're up on your trendy food get ups, you know that Korean fried chicken was the darling of the food media about a year back, thanks in no small part to writeups like this Feb. 2007 New York Times piece that employed words like "apotheosis" to describe the disparity between the Seoul food specialty and its greasier, craggier American counterpart.
The mesmerizing delicacy is available up in the North Philly corridor that people to refer to as "Little Korea" or "Koreatown," most notably at Café Soho (468 W. Cheltenham Ave., 215-224-6800), a popular spot that Elisa Ludwig dubbed the "Korean version of the Peach Pit" thanks to its "brightly colored lights, young wait staff and crowds of teenagers with asymmetrical haircuts drinking milk shakes." It has not, however, been easy to come by in the greater Center City vicinity.
That is, until Steve Cho, chef/owner of Meju in Old City, decided to start slanging the stuff. We tore apart two plates of the chicken for lunch the other day. Meju is doing it two ways — a spicier red pepper chili version and a garlicky, soy-based sweeter variety. Both are served, sprinkled with scallions and sesame seeds, next to a jagged row of pickled daikon radish with which to cool one's mouth.
The sauces are surely key, but it's the crunch that truly separates Korean fried chicken from its Yankee cuz. Cho attributes this to a double-frying technique and the addition of corn starch into the batter. ("It's ... so ... CRISPY!" one sauce-smeared coworker exclaimed on our recent trip.)
Eat this immediately.
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| Photo | Drew Lazor |
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