Chez Kimchi

When my friends wanted to know what I felt like eating for dinner Friday night, I knew exactly where I wanted to take them, to Chez Kimchi for some Korean fried chicken. I didn’t anticipate a line at the door and a 20 minute waiting period but we were there and I had already promised my stomach fried chicken, so I left my name on the wait list and browsed through the menu. Continually throughout the night people there were people waiting for a table, so you knew it was either A) really good and popular or B) new to Canberra, I was hoping a little from column A and a little from column B.

We were given condiments and bone bucket. We were ready to start!Gogi-gunmandu deep-fried Korean dumplings filled with pork mince and vegetables (4 pieces $6.80). These dumplings were crispy and cooked perfectly, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what was inside the dumpling. I didn’t think these added much to our experience and I wouldn’t bother ordering any of the dumplings again.Saewu Jjinmandu steamed Korean dumplings filled with prawns and vegetables ($6.80). You could tell that these had prawn inside, but they weren’t particularly good; skip the dumplings and head straight for the fried chicken!Ginger iced tea and Lemon iced tea (around $4.50?). It is not your typical iced tea, think more preserved lemon and ginger. I think I preferred the ginger one more because it was more refreshing.Bulgogi Bokkeum beef stir-fried with vegetables in a Kimchi’s specials sauce served on a sizzling plate ($18.50) served with steamed rice. This is one of my favourite Korean dishes and I wasn’t going to pass it up. I don’t know if it was traditional or particularly good; I’ve never had a bulgogi that I haven’t liked.Japchae stir fried glass noodles (sweet potato noodles) with vegetables in a soy sauce ($15.80). I’ve always liked Korean sweet potato noodles (easy to cook at home too) and these were really nice but I wasn’t a huge fan of the cloud ear fungus.Now to why we really came here, fried chicken!

Spicy chilli chicken smoked chilli spicy sauce (half chicken $18.00). When we ordered this, the waitress stressed that it was spicy, yes that is why we were ordering it, then she stressed that it was really spicy and that made us a little worried but my friend was adamant that she wanted this fried chicken, so we ordered it anyway against our better judgement. I am not a good judge of spiciness because my tolerance for chilli is on the lower end, but man! For me it really spicy (and subtly smoky) but I made it through and even ate two pieces out of spite (yes waitress, we ate the whole thing!). So maybe for other people who LOVE spicy food, it might not be too bad.Soy sauce chicken perfect combination of garlic and soy sauce good with beer (half chicken $18.00). This by comparison seemed really sticky and sweet. Easy to eat and very messy (not a first date food) but I don’t know if they gave us the right one because I didn’t taste any garlic at all. I think next time I’d choose another flavour of chicken, one with a fried coating rather than a sticky marinade and one that won’t make me tear up and blow my nose.

Despite being very busy and borderline overwhelming for the staff, they were still very friendly and attentive. Chez Kimchi have 14 flavours of fried chicken and I am super keen to come back and try more! I imagine when they aren’t crazy busy that it would be a place to grab fast dinner before a movie.

Venue: Chez Kimchi

Address: 70 Bunda Street, Civic

Phone: (02) 6247 5525