CHEOGAJIP 起家雞
No. 26, Lane 290, GuangFu S. Road
台北市大安區光復南路290巷26號
MRT: SYS memorial Hall
hours: 11:30AM-10:30PM, Friday and Sat until 11PM
$$ (about NT$300 a person)
website: Cheogajip facebook page
visit reviewed:
WHAT TO DO IF YOU'VE JUST come back from a trip to Seoul and had a lot of glorious eating of everything BUT Korean fried chicken (韓國炸雞 )? If you're me, you call Cheogajip for a couple of boxes to go and then dig up photos from your visit last year to finally throw up this post. A few years ago, when Korean soaps started to invade Taipei, I started to see cups of korean fried popcorn chicken pop up on my instagram feed from Chicken in Bok and Beer, Chimac 175, and in real life, at the now closed Mom's Chicken, at ATT4Fun and even oven baked versions from Oven Maru.
Cheogajip is a two story shop near the SYS Memorial Hall MRT, near the alleys that house Wendel's, Mazendo, Brookhurst Seafood Bar. Most of the seating is upstairs, and suitable for big groups.
Cheogajip's menu offers over a dozen different types of Korean fried chicken. Sweet, spicy, boneless or whole chicken with bone, it can be difficult to narrow down the options if you have never tried it and only want to order one. If you can only choose one, I would go with the
Boneless Spicy Yung Nyeom ($410) which is both sweet and spicy, with some honey to balance out the spiciness. Even if you get the regular
Yung Nyeom it still has a tiny tinge of spiciness, so it just depends on your tolerance. If you have zero tolerance for heat, then you can opt for a
Half Half box which has plain original fried chicken and your choice for the other half. Be warned though, there isn't much else on the menu besides fried chicken besides side dishes like salad, fries, spicy rice cake and rice with seaweed, so don't come expecting a fuller Korean menu.
For my first visit, I rounded up a group of friends who were excited to have some chicken and beer with me, so we were able to try a variety of flavors. Sticky, spicy, sweet, crispy, crunchy 🍗🍗. If you've never had Korean fried chicken before, Cheogajip is a great place to start. Just make sure to bring enough friends to share. Thank you to Cheogajip for hosting us that first time.
Cheogajip has four main flavors that you can choose to be spicy or non spicy. Plain fried chicken original, their signature honey "yung nyeom", crispier soy sauce "warak", scallion fried chicken w a sweet sauce, and supreme with a drizzle of mayo. You can order a whole chicken (with bones), boneless or wings, and for the whole chicken you can choose 2 flavors. Sides include seaweed rice, salad, fries or beer. That's pretty much the menu.
My favorites were the spicy signature honey boneless (this pic) and the non spicy soy, which is the crispiest. I think I might switch it next time and try non spicy honey and the spicy soy.. Lol! Portions are huge and the chicken meat was meaty and tender.
The servers were quite helpful in explaining to us what the differences were. Only the Yung Nyeom comes boneless, all the other are a whole chicken fried, but if you're a wings lover, it's no big deal. The only difference is that you can eat the boneless version with a fork and not get your hands dirty, where the regular kind you ware going to get sticky.
Yung Nyeom - Sweet and mild
Spicy Yung Nyeom- Spicy and sweet
Warak- Soy garlic
Supreme Yung Nyeom- with a drizzle of mayo
Scallion- Scallion
Whole chicken
Boneless chicken
Wings
(top left spicy young nyeom, top right scallion, bottom left warak)
Warak is slightly less sweet than Yung Nyeom since they use soy sauce instead of honey for the marinade. It's slightly crispier as well. If you can't finish a whole chicken, you can order just Warak wings. Each piece was very juicy and tender and such a guilty pleasure to eat. Everyone gluttoned out on korean fried chicken and left very happy.
Spicy rice cake (NT$90)
Korean rice balls (NT$80) - DIY complete with glove to mix up the rice and seaweed and make your own rice balls
Yung Nyeom boneless (NT$360) mildly spicy honey glaze. Sooo hits the spot!
Boneless Scallion (NT$380)
Warak (NT$430) soy garlic glaze
If you need anything you just press the call button on the table.
Since my first visit, I've ordered to go from them a number times. It takes about 20-40 minutes for them to get the order ready, depending on how busy they are, so you can't order from them when you are in a rush since they fry to order. Where else have you guys tried chicken and beer in Taipei?
