Bonchon Thailand

Who doesn’t like good fried chicken? Before Korean fried chicken started to open outlets in Singapore, the very first one I tried was in Bangkok and it was Bonchon. I was told they had one of the best-fried chickens outside of Korea and when I tried, I couldn’t help but agree. When I tried the one in Singapore, I have to say that the Bangkok ones are much better

One of the outlets I love to visit is the one at The Mercury Ville as it is less crowded and the possibility of getting a table is higher. I visited in December 2022 but when I did a search recently, they have closed down permanently. The nearest outlets still open are Terminal 21, Central World and Em Quartier. I will continue to review the food since the other outlets should not defer so much

The menu is quite a huge variety of Korean dishes other than fried chicken like their ramen, kimchi jigae, pancakes and also marinated crab rice

The highlight is the fried chicken wings; they have the choice between soy garlic, spicy sauce or half-half. You can also choose between the whole chicken parts, chicken wings or boneless chicken chunks. They do have seasonal new items like the truffle crispy chicken but we went with the soy garlic wings which came with sides of coleslaw and pickled radish. I really loved their pickled radish cubes so I ordered an additional serving. The chicken wings were crispy with a succulent inside so the juices flow out when you bite into them. The soy garlic was on the salty side but was perfect when paired with the coleslaw and pickled radish

This was something we had never seen on the Singapore menu so we decided to order it to try. It is fried chicken skin and we decided to order it with the spicy sauce since our wings were the soy garlic version. The chicken skin was extremely crunchy and crispy but the spicy sauce was way too spicy for me to handle so I could only take 2 pieces in total. It would have been the perfect snack for me if it was non-spicy.

We also wanted something soupy so we ordered the kimchi jigae which was served in a hot Korean stone earthenware Ttukbaegi so the soup was boiling hot when served. The soup was very hearty and laden with ingredients like enoki mushrooms, prawns, tofu and chopped kimchi. The soup was savoury with a tinge of sourness from the sour kimchi. It was a decent Kimchi jigae but nothing too outstanding

I was missing the marinated raw crabs from Korea so much that when I saw this on the menu, I had to order one portion to try to satisfy my craving. Unfortunately, it was not the same thing as the raw marinated crabs. It was more like a fermented crab roe with soy sauce and sesame which was salty with a mild taste of crab flavour. This tasted a lot more like the ones I got from the GS25 which I reviewed here. As the crab roe topping is very salty, it goes well with the white rice and seaweed which was served on the side. It is an interesting dish but definitely not the same as the marinated raw crabs in Korea

Overall, the fried chicken wings at Bonchon Thailand were still great although a lot of the other items are not that fantastic. The wings are still worth a visit although there are many new options available in Bangkok now in terms of Korean cuisine