Food Trends: Taiwanese Fried Chicken

It was the Fall of 2015 but I remember waiting an hour in line for the grand opening of Hot Star Fried Chicken. At that time, I had never tried Taiwanese fried chicken before. When I took a bite of that hot breaded spicy chicken, I was hooked! Unlike North American fried chicken, Taiwanese fried chicken is made for easy consumption on the go and is considered a street style snack. My first bite of this crunchy spicy goodness was surprisingly good – it was juicy, salty and spicy all rolled in one! Thus began my journey for more snackable fried chicken.

For those of you in Toronto, here is my list of Taiwanese Fried Chicken stops and why I like them!

Hot Star Fried Chicken: Hot Star is the OG of Taiwanese fried chicken and also the first to land in Toronto. Their snackable chicken comes in seaweed, pepper and chili flavours and is always my benchmark for all other Taiwanese fried chickens! (http://www.hot-star.ca)

Monga: Unique for having battered fried chicken instead of breaded fried chicken, Monga’s Taiwanese-style friend chicken comes in the following flavours: Hot Chick  (spicy and made from a blend of pepper seasoning), Okinwa Seaweed and The King (salt and pepper). They also serve “baogers” (“bao” + “burger”) with pork belly, fried chicken, and shrimp cake. (http://www.mongacanada.com)

Diyija: Hailing from China, Diyija is known for their cheesplosion of flavour in their Cheese-infused Taiwanese-style fried chicken. We cut ours in half and cheese literally just oozed out of the chicken. Eating this feels very gluttonous. There are also a few drinks on the menu that were tasty too such as the Hibiscus Slush and Kumquat Tea.

Cheers Cut Fried Chicken: This is the most recent Taiwanese fried chicken I’ve tried and I really liked it! The spicy fried chicken was very juicy and the meat was not too dry. What’s different about Cheers Cut from the other fried chickens in town is that it comes with sauce on the side for dipping in Teriyaki, Spicy, Ketchup and Plum flavours. (http://cheers-cut.ca)