Fried chicken has long been a Southern tradition, no question. And fried chicken juggernauts like Bojangles’, local barbeque joints and even Kentucky Fried Chicken have tried to tell us that they know all there is to know about fried chicken. But there’s a new kind of fried chicken in town now — Korean.
And it’s good.
Different from its Southern counterpart, which is often characterized by a thick seasoned crust, Korean fried chicken has a thin crackly crust — a crust achieved through an Asian cooking method that renders fat from the skin.
At Soo Cafe, a restaurant on Hillsborough Street that opened late last fall, students and locals can try owner and Chef Jo Young’s take on Korean fried chicken.
“We developed our own recipe for the chicken,” Young said. “And we are proud to say that Soo chicken was born in N.C.”
The fried chicken currently comes in three different flavors; hot and spicy, sweet, and soy garlic, with plans for a new flavor underway.
And the hot and spicy flavor is actually hot. For some students such as Kristi Phillips, a post baccalaureate studies student, it is a dollyo chagi, “roundhouse kick,” to the face.
“The chicken was really good. It was crispy and juicy and hot,” said Phillips. “I needed some water.”
Those looking for popular Korean staples, like tteokbokki or kimchi jigae, will have to look elsewhere. However, Soo makes up for this by including dishes like udon or tonkatsu, a Japanese-style fried pork cutlet.
Soo Cafe intentionally tries to exclude common menu items, not that you won’t find bulgogi and kalbi here, in order to prevent drawing business away from other local restaurants.
“Actually,” Young said, “Soo Cafe isn’t aiming to compete with other local Korean restaurants for business at all.” Instead, they want to enhance what is already available.
Young, a native of Seoul, Korea, moved to the United States 18 years ago to attend graduate school in New York, where he also met his wife. New York is also where Young cut his teeth in the restaurant business.
“[Throughout our time in New York] we had four restaurants — three Japanese and one Korean restaurant,” Young said.
The family moved to Durham six years ago, where they were a partner at Sushi Nara. And three years ago the family started a catering business.
It then comes as no surprise, with so much experience, that when Young and his wife found an available storefront close to the University, they opened Soo Cafe.
A quaint and cozy space, the cafe’s decor has an undeniable Asian influence. Customers can peruse a selection of Korean language comic books while they wait, or watch Korean pop music on the TV in the corner. According to Young, the items on the ceiling are representative of a “gama,” the Korean version of a litter or palanquin.
“I have three rules: first is sanitation, second is quality and third is customer [satisfaction],” Young said. “I’m always thinking from the customer’s perspective and even sometimes I get [customers] that want food fast, but I tell them ‘sorry it takes a little longer in order to keep [the] quality high.’”
And although the prices may seem high at first, ranging anywhere from $6-$23 for fried chicken, Young said customers can be sure that all his ingredients are of top quality with Angus-certified beef, black pork and vegetables sourced from the North Carolina Farmer’s Market.
