My brother Jason is a huge fan of Korean fried chicken and has eaten A LOT of it in his lifetime so he was pretty excited about NeNe Chicken opening in Perth. Are you on the Korean fried chicken train too? Keep scrolling for what Jason thought of NeNe Chicken…
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I absolutely love fried chicken… some of my fondest memories as a kid was when my parents use to take us to the Mirrabooka KFC all you can eat buffet or getting a hot and spicy 2 piece feed and opening the box hoping for a thigh and drumstick.
If you’ve never tried it before, Korean fried chicken is super crispy from being twice fried and I find it tastes less oily and sickening when compared to eating KFC. It’s also super tasty as many flavours come glazed in one of their special sauces.
About 6 years ago was when I first discovered Korean fried chicken and ever since that first bite, it has become hands down my favorite kind of fried chicken, so I was super keen to try the newest K-fried joint on the block. Korean fried chicken joints have been popping up left right and center in Perth in the past year and I’m loving it as they are great hangout spots built on the premise of drinking beer and socialising with mates over some fried chicken, with OTT (over the top) K-Pop music videos in the background… can’t really ask for more.
At the NeNe Chicken Perth launch we were seated in the upstairs section which also contained 3 Darts2Live arcade machines (Dance Dance Revolution/Guitar Hero for darts) and some awesome wall art.
Korean fried chicken usually comes in 3-4 different flavours and glazes – original with no sauce, garlic soy, sweet chilli and sometimes hot chilli. NeNe Chicken has upped the ante and offers 8 different flavours and a host of other menu items including burgers and wraps.
We decided to go for half a chicken in Bulgogi and half in swicy their sweet chilli glaze. The great thing about it is we had the option to request for strictly thigh, drumsticks and wings only. A lot of people love chicken breast, so if that’s your preference you could probably request for breast only as well (no pun intended).
The chicken skin was crispy and the meat was juicy and tender as expected. I found the glaze/sauces at NeNe Chicken to be on the sweeter side in comparison to other Korean Fried Chicken joints like Sun BBQ.
The chicken came with a side of white radish pickle and coleslaw. I love eating a piece of white radish pickle after each bite of the chicken as it cuts through the grease. I’d say it’s the Korean equivalent to eating pickled onion with fish and chips.
Probably one of my highlights was when the skin is so crispy and fried it flaked off. My fiancé Little Miss Bacon and I went halves on it.
As a side, we got the Bulchi Chips Crispy chips, a loaded chips dish that consisted of a bulgogi meat which had a paste like consistency with kim chi, sour cream and spring onions. This was awesome, the chips were crunchy and the flavours were like a Korean version of nachos but with chips.
We also got a tornado potato with snowing vegetable seasoning and chilli flakes. Little Miss Bacon and I reckon we could spend all day eating these, it was so good we ordered another one.
We finished off the meal with the black sesame and green tea soft serve. I thoroughly enjoyed the combo of flavours, but I think the black sesame flavor is a bit of an Asian acquired taste. I found the black sesame to have a salty soy sauce like flavor to it which was quite interesting.
These days there are quite a few Perth Korean fried chicken joints to select from, if I were to come just for the chicken, NeNe Chicken probably wouldn’t be my top pick. But the overall package in terms of variety from the chicken to the tornado potato and soft serve to the Darts2Live machine, NeNe Chicken is definitely a stand out from the crowd.
