Choong Man Chicken Davie - Korean Fried Chicken — Restaurant in Davie

Good chicken but extremely loud and offensive music! Like having a meal in a disco!

Recently, the Sun Sentinel newspaper published an article about new chicken restaurants in Broward County. Choong Man Chicken, a Korean-style chicken restaurant, was mentioned. Since I lived and worked in Korea for almost 20 years, and my wife is Korean, we wanted to check it out.

We visited this restaurant on Father’s Day in the evening. When you first enter the restaurant, you have to place your order at one of the touch screen menus. This restaurant does not take cash. You must pay by card. I found the menu a little confusing at first, but we managed to figure it out. When you place your order, you also have to decide if you want to add a tip. We didn’t add a tip, but we left a cash tip on the table. After placing your order, you get a receipt, and then you also need to pick up a plastic number and take it with you.

This is a small restaurant. They have four booths, two small tables about the size of a card table, which can accommodate four people each, and a long counter that can accommodate six people on either side, though it would be very crowded if you had 12 people. They also have four large picnic tables outside, with no awning or covering. If you eat outside, you will be subject to the Florida heat, humidity, and wind. There is an abundance of parking spaces.

We ordered two dishes of chicken: 1/2 classic fried (6 pcs) and 1/2 garlic spicy chicken (6 pcs). Each dish cost $13.99, which I thought was a little expensive. We did not order any drinks or side dishes, except for the free mu radish. Including the cash tip we left at the table, we spent around $35 on this visit.

It took almost 30 minutes before our chicken arrived. Our food was delivered by a little robot, which I think is more of a novelty item than a matter of efficiency. The chicken tasted good, but our dining experience was ruined by the excessively loud pop music blaring from the speakers. If I go to a disco or dance hall, I expect the music to be loud, and I don’t expect to carry on a conversation with anyone. However, when I go out to eat, I would like to be able to talk to my wife without shouting. To make matters worse, all the surfaces in the restaurant are hard, so the sound of the music is just magnified. I did not understand a word of what the singers were saying until they blurted out some English in a rap segment. I heard B! B! (a word that rhymes with witch), and then I heard G* d**! I was incredibly offended by both the ear-splitting music and the profane lyrics. It takes a great deal of hubris on the part of the owner of this restaurant to assume that all the customers who come through the doors want to hear this type of music as they eat, at triple the volume.

If we had not driven 30 minutes to get to this restaurant, we would have left without ever placing an order. In any case, we agreed that we won’t be back. We do not enjoy such a cacophonous...

It seems like the most innovative food is coming out of Korea. I'm still hunting down a croffle but I can cross off my list Korean fried chicken. You think of fried chicken as a niche dominated by the American south but it is interesting to note that fried chicken became a Korean obsession after KFC came to the country in 1984 ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Since then restaurants have sprung up that serve chimaek, pairings of chicken and beer. Now in Korea, the initials KFC we associate with Kentucky Fried Chicken, are more likely to stand for Korean Fried Chicken.

Choong Man Chicken is a franchise that has been around since 2009. Company founder Choongman Park has more than 200 restaurants in South Korea. There are now over 200 restaurants in the US with one just opened in Davie. Choong Man Chicken is known for their tikkudak, chicken that has been fried and then baked in a charcoal oven for extra crispness. Another one of their specialties is snow chicken, which is fried chicken covered in raw onion and a mayonnaise based sauce.

I was introduced to Choong Man Chicken by my girlfriend who has a knack for knowing what is on trend. We came over to eat dinner before a Yelp dessert event. They have have both a indoor dining room and outdoor patio dining.. While you check out the menu, they start you off with a complimentary dish of a sweet pickled radish. You can have your chicken in drumsticks, wings, tenders, half, and whole chickens. They also serve gizzards. If you like spicy heat you will be pleased here with the sauce choices. Preparations include garlic spicy, red hot pepper, curry, hot and cold snow onion, lemon spring onion, cheese monster, and tikku. Knowing that hot spice is not really my thing my friend suggested we order the garlic soy chicken tenders and curly fries.

It took quite awhile to get our food but it was worth the wait. A plate of sweet soy garlic tenders was $15.99 and was more than enough for two people to share. The sauce had just a little bit of a kick. Unfortunately our indifferent server forgot to put our curly fries order in. By the time it came out we had finished our chicken. They were tasty anyway and were also a massive portion. If you are looking for a healthy vegetable you are going to go empty handed here. The best you can get is a side of coleslaw. Rice, French fries, waffle fries, and cheese monster fries round out the sides.

We only ordered two things and our server forgot one of them! It wasn't even busy. She also couldn't figure out the POS system. They have some kinks to work out. One of the owners came over to the table and remembered my friend from a previous visit so that was nice. If you haven't tried Korean Fried Chicken before you will be in for a treat. Now I'm off to find...

Hubby and I are self-professed foodies and since moving from Massachusetts to Florida two years ago, have been on the hunt for the best KFC in South Florida.

We have tried so many places, and what we have discovered is that some places get the texture of the skin correct or get the sauce correct, but had not found a place that could get the two right at the same time until now.

We’re a small family of three so we ordered the red hot chicken and the soy garlic for our kid that doesn’t eat very spicy. When I bit into the red hot chicken I almost wanted to cry because it was so delicious and so spot on for crunch, heat and umami from the spicy fermented paste that should be in the sauce.

We also ordered the best fries I have ever had in my life. I don’t remember the name of the cheese fries but you have to order it when you go there. They are super light and crispy fries with powdered cheese on them and served with a smoky dipping sauce on the side. Oh my god so good. Another thing that I wanna mention is that you can taste that they filter, clean and change their oil out frequently because the fries did not taste like chicken. I asked the lovely owners and they said that they do not fry their fries in the same oil as the chicken they have separate fryers for both!

I really loved being able to talk to the owner directly and feel the passion he has for quality and service. Everything that they have there is direct from Korea, every tiny little detail is well thought out.

We ordered three non-alcoholic beverages that were also amazing. I had the pear, kiddo the orange and hubby the white grape. They were very lightly sweetened with little bits of real fruit pulp on the bottom of the can. It was a refreshing addition to the foods we were eating.

We can’t wait to go back to try some of the other menu items. I definitely want to try the snow chicken. Thanks for opening such a great authentic Korean fried chicken place here in South Florida. It’s definitely...