- Hey y'all, I'm Destinee.
- And I'm Jarvis.
- Hey, I'm Q.
- I'm Evan.
- And today we're gonna be trying some Korean
and American Southern fried chicken.
- I am from Houston, Texas, I live in Cape Town.
I am not an expert on Korean food but I love it.
- I am a military kid so everywhere and nowhere,
but I did do an extensive amount of time in Korea,
and I had a very southern upbringing
so I know good American fried Southern chicken
when it's in my face.
Actually I smelled it when we walked into the room.
- I am from New York. A lot of my family are from the south,
so, grew up eating a lot of southern good food.
- I was originally born in Korea,
I mean I go back there time to time to visit.
Last time I went to Korea
I went to this fried chicken franchise.
I wanted to order grilled chicken so I asked the waitress,
"do you guys have any non-friend chicken?"
She stops for like five seconds
and she's like "how's chicken not fried?"
(laughs)
- Back of the line, sir.
- So, my understanding on how
Korean friend chicken came to be
is during the Korean war
when they had the black soldiers over at Korea,
they weren't just about to be like
"oh yeah, we'll have season-less food."
So we get to Korea and we're like,
"Katusa, Odachi, we got you,"
and so we introduced to them how to make
properly fried chicken.
- [Crewman] Talk about where like,
Southern friend chicken comes from.
- Slavery. - Yep, slavery.
- There's obviously a stereotype that black people
like fried chicken.
I like fried chicken. - Yes, very true.
- There are some people who don't like fried chicken
and it's fine.
As for me in my house, you'll eat fried chicken.
- I confer Korean fried chicken's a little less heavy.
It's like very juicy and very crunchy and it's really thin.
Like, there's a lot of flavors,
there's like sweet, sweet and spicy,
there's spicy, there's regular.
- Interesting.
So with Southern fried chicken
I don't think there's too many flavors.
Either you got original or you got spicy.
I'm excited. - Yeah.
- I mean, I feel like,
you've had the American version of Korean friend chicken.
- Okay, well I'm hoping that the one
that we eat today is pretty authentic.
- I hope so, it better--
I will let you all know, immediately, if it is not.
I wore pants that could expand for this very purpose.
- If they're bringing us food, I assume it's good food
and I'm just gonna run with that, we'll see what happens.
If I taste it and it's actually better,
I will let y'all know.
Like I won't be like
"oh."
(laughs)
I won't do that.
- I don't think I have had like,
Southern style fried chicken.
'Cause I only go to Korean fried chicken restaurant.
When I wanna eat fried chicken.
- You goin' to the hood today, baby.
(upbeat music)
- All right, so we have some regular BB Wings,
it's called BB Wings,
and we have some Red Hot Drumsticks from BBQ Chicken.
A very popular franchise.
So just think of it as a non-spicy and spicy.
- I'm excited.
This looks really good.
- So here's the thing about the spicy and non-spicy,
amongst the Korean's.
Korean's like to eat one of each.
So we created a menu where a plate equals both of them.
So that's a very popular combo
in Korean fried chicken industry.
- I feel very cultured right now.
- Let's eat the non-spicy BB Wings first.
- Okay. - All right.
- This is good.
Very juicy.
That I will say.
- It tastes good.
I want the skin to be a little, like...
- Crispier? - Crispier.
Yeah, yeah,
but nah, it's good.
- There's just a key ingredient in Southern fried chicken
that is missing.
If they had that.
- It has a sort of spice in it that I'm not familiar with,
when I go back to Houston, but I mean it's still good.
- Ooh, child.
- Damn, bro.
- So good.
(laughs)
It's so good.
There's certain food in your life,
that you just can't, like, wait.
- Yeah, you gotta dive in.
- Oh now y'all just watching me eat, it's not weird at all.
- I thought this was something that I've had before.
Bain marie of wings,
Just like a big tray of these
sitting right next to the macaroni.
- Now, what I have been waiting for.
What I cannot wait for you to...
As a matter of fact-- - Drumroll.
- I just want you to try it, I just wanna witness.
- You wanna see my face.
- This is good.
Whoa.
It's not spicy like you would think,
this is like spicy but it's like a little sweet.
- You can see on the skin
it's like a glaze. - A glaze.
- I think that's the sweet part,
as it puts sweet and spicy.
- This is life changing.
- I like it, I like it.
- Yeah.
I will say, this isn't the one
that I remember having in Korea,
but it is very, very, very close.
You like it?
- I do.
I do like the regular Southern fried one a bit better.
- To find this Stateside, they nailed it.
- See now I'll smash some of these.
- Already doing it right now.
(laughs)
- Yeah, we don't gotta worry about Evan.
He's gonna smash it.
Okay, okay, I lied.
- I lied, it's a little spicy.
I appreciate this.
I'm excited to be a part of this video.
Thank you so much, Buzzfeed.
(upbeat music)
- We have some fried chickens from Dulan's.
I'm excited.
For one, it's a black-owned spot.
- They got my money.
Well, if...
They got my money.
- I can tell this is gonna be nice and crispy,
nice and juicy.
I think it's gonna be good.
- Let's try it. - It looks pretty good.
- Ooh.
- It's always my thing to find
like, where the first bite should be.
- This is good, I'm not mad about it.
- This is very good.
- I'm not mad.
- 'Cause usually it's what you might taste
whenever you go to like a soul food restaurant.
Usually you've got a side of like, some greens,
mac and cheese, cornbread, that sort of stuff.
This is also whenever you have an event
at like, a predominantly black church.
This is what the chicken would taste like.
- Mm-hmm, this is that chicken.
- Yeah, yeah, it's good.
- It's very peppery.
I'm a sucker for pepper.
I love pepper.
The peppery flavor kind of compliments
the little bit of dryness and the texture of the meat.
- Not as moist, very flavorful, so yeah I like this.
- I feel like you cannot put all chicken in one category.
I feel like you can't compare,
because no two chicken is the same.
- This is why it goes so well
with like, some macaroni or some collard greens,
they're all like the same, you know what I mean?
- Yes.
- You got 'em together, we have a party here.
- Yes!
I think they have--
- We got sides?
- We got a surprise, I didn't know we had sides.
- Bro.
This is all I was hoping for.
- Is this what you were talking about?
- This is what I'm talking about.
There's not just mac and cheese,
this is baked mac and cheese.
This is a different ball game.
- Baked.
- You don't want none of that stove type shit.
- Oh, that's really good.
- Know what I'm talking about?
All we're missing is the collard greens.
I wouldn't lie to you, Evan.
- Oh, wow.
- While the good old Southern girl in me loves
Southern fried chicken.
I'm Korea, brah.
I think I'm gonna have to stay
with the Korean fried chicken.
I'm sorry, my people.
I'm sorry.
- Can I just say that I can't choose?
Like they're both great for different reasons.
- No. - I don't know, it's hard.
So based on my mood today,
which may change tomorrow,
I would have to go with the Southern fried chicken,
just 'cause I was in the mood, you know,
I just visited home a few weeks ago,
so I'm still a bit home sick.
But you know, maybe tomorrow.
Also just had Korean food yesterday.
Ask me again tomorrow, I'll probably choose the other one.
We'll see.
- You know, no matter how full I am during the day.
You know when people say there's always room for dessert?
- Yeah.
- In my case it's that there's always room
for fried chicken.
- There's always room for fried chicken, bro.
- Yeah, it's really cool that Korean fried chicken
and Southern fried chicken is so different
but it's like the best version of those two ends.
- The best of both worlds.
I felt like the Southern fried chicken was very flavorful,
and then with the Korean fried chicken, it was light,
crunchy, that sauce they had on there...
Boy. - [Evan] It's so juicy.
- But I'm not gonna lie,
if I had to choose today which one I thought was better,
I'm gonna have to say the Korean fried chicken.
That sauce really wowed me.
I don't think I've ever had that
on any fried chicken before.
It was good, it was good.
- I agree.
(upbeat music)