Must-try in Dongdaemun, Seoul: Kyochon Fried Chicken — even if it makes your lips numb from spice, you have to try it!

Text & Photos / Chun Chun Yu Dong ♥ A Foodie Girl’s Life Journal

Kyochon Fried Chicken in Dongdaemun is really hard to find. I followed directions from other bloggers, but let’s just skip how I got there... I suggest using GPS to navigate instead of trying to read the map yourself.

※ Kyochon Fried Chicken has moved. As of early June 2015, it's located above the KFC near Exit 6 of Dongdaemun Station.

I encountered quite a few impolite Koreans during my trip to Korea, which made me quite upset. On the way to this shop, someone pushing goods bumped into me, then casually said something in Korean. When I asked a Korean-speaking friend, they told me he was actually cursing at me, saying “Damn you!” (even though I was the one who got bumped into). The staff at the shop also weren’t very friendly, but in the end we managed to place our order and there were seats available upstairs.

There were about five or six of us eating that day, and we ordered a combo meal that came with salad and potato wedges. This one was the original flavor. Korean fried chicken is pretty unique — when you order, they give you a big pile, like chunks from a whole cut-up chicken, with lots of bones. Eating this is really a game of luck.

The spicy flavor? Just wow, it was insanely spicy. There weren’t many of us who could handle spicy food, so I just kept eating. By the end, my mouth was completely numb like I’d been eating sausages, and I couldn’t taste anything.