Undercover Gourmet

by Jason Fong

KFC. Do you just picture Colonel Sanders telling you your chicken is finger licking good? It may be true for most, but to me KFC is Korean Fried Chicken. This version of KFC is not available at just any Korean eatery. This KFC is only available at Lee House Restaurant, just south of Whyte Avenue on Calgary trail.  This chicken, appropriately named Lee House Fried Chicken on the menu, is most interesting to me as it comes in 3 distinct sections:

Sauce, Crunch, and Wow.

The sauce is a deep savory BBQesque type sauce with an Asian note. If you can imagine a Korean cowboy, do so now. I believe the sauce to be derived from tomatoes, bean paste and honey which gives it that sweet sticky feeling as it rolls off your tongue. The Crunch can only be brought to your attention by comparing it to potato chips. For example, you have a relatively good crunch from a regular potato chip, but compared to a kettle fried chip, the crunch is just that much more spectacular.  Something about kettle frying, which is how this chicken is cooked, gives it a supernatural texture. I will have to simply call it Crunch².  The Wow part is when you combine tasty chicken with the Korean cowboy BBQ sauce and Crunch². Your taste buds will be at your mercy, as they anxiously wait for teeth to sink into that fine piece o’ chicken. Another Wow is that even though the chicken is tossed in sauce, the chicken stays crunchy even to the next day after being warmed up in the microwave… that is if you had any leftovers to take home.

The next KFC item is the chicken balls. Do not mistake these chicken balls for what is normally produced in Western style Chinese restaurants. This is not a piece of chicken the size of a pea, encased in deep fried batter the size of an orange.  No sir (and madam). These kam poong gi chicken balls at Lee House are big chunks of whole chicken meat with skin on, floured and fried. The chicken balls are then tossed in a sweet spicy sauce, ready to destroy any diet you may be on. You will never have chicken balls quite like this any where else unless you are eating at the owner’s house.

If you are to have some KFC at Lee House it is best enjoyed on a cold day with friends. Add a few orders of the soon tofu stew (spicy seafood and soft tofu soup) and their version of pork belly and you will be having a delicious time.

This post is written by Jason Fong, and edited by Evonne Li

7904 104 Street NW
Edmonton, Alberta
780-438-0790

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