10/27/13 - Chicken Up - Korean Fried Chicken (The real KFC)

Believe it or not, last weekends festivities came courtesy of more inspiration obtained from hours of time spent in an airplane.  At some point and through some publication that I can't remember, it was either the Economist, The Straits Times or the Silkair in-flight magazine (talk about a disparate group) I had happened across an article about Korean Fried Chicken.  In the past 10 years I've probably eaten fried chicken less than 10 times, but a rather unhealthy obsession developed after reading this article.  Apparently the difference in style is the chicken is fried twice, leaving a very crispy skin and tender, moist meat inside.  It is then accompanied by Korean beer and you get to chuck your bones in a little garbage cans at the table, sounded like fun and meant to be a social, group activity.

I figured there had to be a place like this in Singapore and after doing a little research, stumbled across Chicken Up.  The reviews sounded good, but we had Sarah confirm first with one of her Singaporean classmates.  He's turned into my go to 'stamp of approval' for all things Singapore.  Once it was confirmed with two thumbs up the only issue was finding a time that worked for everyone interested.  Last Saturday it all came together and that was how we found ourselves winding our way through a street full of restaurants and convenience stores displaying the South Korean flag.  Turns out there's a Little Korea in Singapore.

We had heard there was an all you could eat buffet with beer option for a reasonable price so we all signed up and 10 minutes later a plate full of wings with soya sauce and large beers with tiny glasses appeared on the table.  Reinforced the whole "feeling like a giant in Singapore" complex I occasionally get.  We began making a mess pretty quickly so it was a little tough to document the endeavor.  I did grab a pic of the little empty trash bin, post chicken carnage.  I think it got filled up at least 5 times.  We cycled through soya wings, kind of a sweet and sour chicken, popcorn chicken and chicken stew.  Even though it was a "buffet" everything is made to order fresh, so as long as you keep ordering the food keeps coming.  Someone (I may have played a role) had the bright idea of ordering some more wings and fries and it was at that point a few of us started experiencing a case of the good old fashioned meat sweats.  Pretty rare here, but at least we were in Singapore so its pretty easy to pass it off as just "regular sweats."

The final plus/negative is they blast Korean pop on the stereo with the music videos being shown on the TV's.  Think Gangnam Style for 2+ hours, the unintentional comedy is simply off the charts.  It seemed like each progressive video had a group with more people in it, from 3 girls to 6 to 9, to hmmm, I think they have enough out there to play a game of 5 on 5 basketball against each other.  Oh wait, they all have NBA jerseys on?  Perfect.  The jokes really just wrote themselves, if the music didn't slowly drive you insane and we had to leave after 2 hours, you probably could have sat there all night coming up with entertaining quips.

All in all a great evening although we all seemed to pay the price the next day.  Could have been the salt, could have been the grease, could have been the cheap Korean beer.  Likely a combination of the 3. Reminded me of Ted and Marshall paying the price for a Gazolas pizza in Chicago.  My bet is, we don't learn our lesson either and make a return trip at some point in the next year.