Korean Chicken Joints For Thai Palettes

We’ve come to take Korean fried chicken for granted in NYC. It’s everywhere, even Sheepshead Bay (r.i.p. Staten Island BonChon) not just in Asian enclaves. We’ve been luckier than Thailand where the spicy, extra-crunchy chicken did not exist…until now.

A couple of Thai college students who went to school here wanted to recreate the experience back home. They followed through (how do you just open a foreign chain like that?) and now Bangkok has witnessed the birth of its first BonChon Chicken franchise in the Seenspace mall (I wonder how that Goth mall is doing?) and it has a New York theme, which is so triply cross-cultural it’s almost freaking me out (just almost, because I did eat Korean fried chicken at a place called Chill Out Sports Bar in Hong Kong that had New York-based articles on the wall, so this is not the first re-import back to Asia).

From what I can see on the menu, which is only on Facebook (I love how the one white guy in their photos had to be wearing a fedora) at the moment, the only obvious Thai tweak is the presence of sticky rice and the only oddity is something they’re calling chicken joints. Pardon my poultry ignorance, but what part of the bird is this?

I only wish that my eyes had not seen the words “Thai palette” mentioned in the original post.

Photo credit: BonChon Chicken Thailand

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