Japanese fried chicken already has its temple in Barcelona, it is called Fry House, it has just opened in c/ de la Unió, 13 (in the Raval, curiously, just 100 meters from the Kentucy Fried Chicken on the Ramblas) and is the first restaurant in the city specializing in karaage: Japanese fried chicken, juicy inside and crispy on the outside, marinated for days and served in buckets to eat with your hands or in burgers that have nothing to do with the usual ones.
But that’s the thing, it just opened. Why did a restaurant that has barely raised the shutter already have, before doing so, almost 30,000 followers on Instagram who had not yet tasted a bite of that famous fried chicken?
Fucking Ken, the chef who is everything but a chef.
The answer to the question lies, mainly, in the chef of the joint.His name is Ken Umehara, or better known as Fucking Ken. A Japanese artist and graphic designer who has been in Barcelona for 20 years and is like a well-known figure in the Barcelona art scene, either for his designs or for his culinary proposals, which mix the advice of fine Japanese food places like Narita in Cadaqués, street food pop-ups in various places or this latest venture, a Japanese fried chicken burger joint.
It has been these 30,000 followers who have set their sights on a small place in the Raval that is the first place specializing in Japanese burgers in Barcelona and wants, above all, to deliver their burgers. To begin to know the proposal, the classic, with chicken, lettuce, homemade pickled gherkins and bearmiso sauce (guess what it is).
In second place, although we liked it better, the Japanese, which adds soy and sesame sauce, and in third and fourth place, the American, with cheese and bacon added to the equation and the vegan, an option that they also advocate here.
The Japanese fried chicken cube, the dream yet to be fulfilled.
But what we liked most about the proposal was the JFC (Japanese Fried Chicken) a bucket of karaage, or Japanese fried chicken where you can get your hands greasy picking up chicken and the fries that they make here with nori, and which are the best in the house.
To achieve this, the chicken (always boneless thighs, never breast)is marinated in more than 30 spices for 30 hours, then coated in a mixture of rice flour and others (Ken’s formula has many secrets) and finally fried for six minutes.
Finish it all off with the salads (watch out for the golden dripp, with mustard and maple syrup and spicy ketchup) and, be careful, with their canned sake, which comes out fresh and goes perfectly with the chicken, just to leave a little wobbly, with dirty hands and a full stomach, walk a hundred meters and look at the KFC with the proud and haughty eyes of a manga prince who knows he has found another princess to fight for.