The Best Chicken in Seoul. Yes, I said it. I’ve been to dozens of fried chicken places. I once even traveled two hours after my friend told me he found the best chicken in Korea. He was wrong. This is the best. Hanchu is short for Hanchan-eh chu uk 한잔의 추억, which means A Good Drinking Memory. Or something like that. Or… One Drink’s Good Memory.
For a country that is ridiculously obsessed with weight loss, Korean’s love their fried chicken. Equally odd, this restaurant is located off of 가로수길 street, the epicenter of malnourished, insecure, wanna-be models. It’s located around the corner from the new Forever 21 on 가로수길, the famous fashion street between Sinsa Station and Apgujung Station.
We went on a Saturday evening around 6pm and the place was only a quarter full. But that quarter could have easily filled most of chicken houses I’ve been to. This place is huge. When I first came to Korea my friend told me one golden rule about eating out: “if the restaurant is empty, don’t eat there”. Makes sense. More patrons shows success. It also leads to higher turnover and fresher food. By the time we left at 7 every seat in the house was full.
This is about half the restaurant:
Notably, Hanchu doesn’t have the typical Korean fried chicken house smell. I’m not sure how to describe it, but most chicken places in Korea have this strange, queasy, sweet swell that wafts down the street. It smells unnatural. This place had no smell, just great chicken, and peppers.
Fried Chicken (후라이드) 17,000₩
The chicken was lightly battered and fried perfectly. Nice and crispy on the outside, soft and fleshy on the inside. Obviously they know what they’re doing. However, what really set this chicken apart is that they fry peppers inside with the chicken. It’s a very subtle change, but it cuts that sweetness that is sometimes hard to bear when eating lots of chicken.
Fried Green Pepper w/ Pork (고추튀김) 13,000₩
The fried peppers were the highlight. The batter and fry were… deathly. In a way, it’s quite dangerous because I’m very often in Apgujung, and now I’m going to be here all the time. The fry was really perfect. Perhaps I’ve just had so much pre-fried garbage in Korea that now that I taste a properly battered/fried piece it’s like eating it for the first time. I’ve really never had anything better fried. The inside stuffing was great also, but the fry really set it apart.
On our last piece of chicken I found a hair baked into the chicken. Seeing as how it was the last piece and we were all full I wasn’t going to say anything, but Mike thought otherwise and asked the owner what he could do for us. Even though we had just finished the entire plate, he offered to give us a full dish of chicken to go. When we said we didn’t want the chicken, he brought over some cider.
A couple of weeks ago, on the night of my night actually, we were at Lemon Terrace in gangnam and got some nachos. In the picture on the menu, the nachos looked like nachos – chips, salsa, sour cream, cheese, etc. But when we got it, it was nachos, cheese, and chocolate. Okay…we thought. It kind of looks like balsamic vinegar… we all tried it and all agreed it was bloody inedible. Actually, disgusting. Actually, coming from San Diego and the best Mexican food outside of Mexico, it was somewhat offensive. Anyhow, we explained this to the manager and she refused to give us something else on the menu.
As that was the last time I dealt with a customer service, this manager’s charismatic generosity was much appreciated.
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Conclusion
The best fried chicken and stuffed peppers in Seoul. Hands down.
15,000₩ each
English Name: HanChu
Korean Name: 한추 (한잔의 추억)
English Address: 549-9 Shinsa-dong Gangnam-gu Seoul
Korean Address: 서울 강남구 신사동 549-9
Phone Number: 02.3446.5778
Popular Items: Stuffed Peppers, Fried Chicken
Hours: 5pm-3am
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