Of course I wanted to have some Korean fried chicken.

But I found it surprisingly hard to figure out where to go. My Google Maps skills served me poorly for whatever set of reasons.

After wandering around a likely looking neighborhood for a while, I found the restaurant you see above. I was tipped off by the sign that said “chicken”.

It turned out they served “tong dak”, which I believe means simply “whole chicken.” And that was it… one chicken for 8,500 won (about $12 NZ, which is less than half of what it might cost in NZ).

And so that’s what I ordered, an entire butterflied / spatchcocked chicken. According to my sources at Anthropic, this is how Korean fried chicken used to be, instead of little twice-fried pieces like it’s usually served today. Now, tong dak is back in vogue as a nostalgic dish.

It was delicious! I took it back to the hotel, pilfered a beer from the concierge lounge, and ate the whole thing.