Last updated on December 28th, 2022 at 09:13 am
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After my Korean fried chicken experience at Outdark, I was on the lookout for a new KFC restaurant to try.
My coworker told me about this Korean chain restaurant called Bachan and Cook. The restaurant is famous for its egg rice but they have other Korean dishes like tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes) and KFC (Korean fried chicken).
Where is Banchan and Cook Located?
There are 4 locations around Hong Kong – Causeway Bay, Tung Chung, Tuen Mun, and Tai Koo Shing.
I went to the Causeway Bay location. This location is inside the mall, Times Square, one of the most famous malls in the city, on the 9th floor.
Causeway Bay is THE shopping area where you can find cute gift stores, affordable clothing, and even high-end designer brands in the Hong Kong Island District. You can expect it to be always busy. Even on weeknights.
I went with a friend on a Wednesday night. It was crazy busy. When you get out of the elevator, you’ll see a long line forming outside a restaurant. That’s Banchan and Cook.
As with many of the other good restaurants like Agehan and One Harbour Road, it’s a place you have to book a table in advance.
Restaurant Vibe
The restaurant vibe is of a little modern café. It’s lively and cozy.
The Causeway Bay location isn’t that big. There aren’t many tables available but do have multiple two-seater booths, which is nice. Don’t we all prefer to sit in a booth rather than a chair?
Food at Banchan and Cook
1) Chicken with Rose Sauce Egg Rice
The egg rice is Banchan and Cook’s signature dish. There are several options available including beef, chicken or mushroom. You can even upgrade your egg rice to crab roe omurice. Yum!
(Banchan and Cook should consider a seafood omurice option in my opinion. Hong Kongers love seafood.)
I was deciding between the chicken with rose sauce and the roasted beef. The chicken with rose sauce is the newest addition to the menu so I went with that one.
It was also an interesting combination. People might tend to associate rose sauce with pasta but it’s rose sauce with rice. I wondered what that would taste like.
When the dish arrived, the staff puts on a show where they slice the egg in half in front of you. You then watch the egg run down the fried rice.
This is the time to whip out your phone to take some pictures or record a video. It’s worth sharing on Instagram.
Mixing the egg with fried rice was fun and when you take a mouthful, it was still very warm.
The taste was a bit spicy but the server did share this before ordering. The spice is not too overwhelming so it’s nothing to worry about unless you can’t eat anything spicy at all.
The chicken was tender and moist but there were only 3 pieces. Maybe I should have gotten the beef. Menu pictures are often deceiving but the egg rice with beef looked like it had more meat.
Overall, this dish was very satisfying. I ate every last bite. It’s the best dish on the menu.
2) Chicken Croffle
When I checked out Banchan and Cook’s online menu, I saw that Banchan and Cook have croffles. A croffle is a mix between croissant and waffle.
Chicken and waffles are a thing but boneless chicken and croffles? What would that taste like?
I knew it was something I must try.
From the menu picture, you wouldn’t be able to tell it’s a croffle. The appearance makes it seem like a plain waffle. It’s only when you read the menu carefully that you catch the detail.
I asked the server what flavour the chicken was with the croffle. He said original. I tried asking if it was possible to change the flavour to soy garlic chicken but he said no.
In hindsight, it’s a good thing because the original chicken tastes better than the soy garlic chicken (which I’ll be talking about next).
You might accidentally think the chicken is spicy because you see little red flakes on top of it. It’s not.
The croffle itself is sweet. They add honey to the dish to make it even sweeter. It’s hard to imagine what drizzled honey with soy garlic chicken would taste like. I doubt that combination would have been a winner.
When you bite into the croffle, you’ll know it’s a croissant because if it was a plain waffle, it wouldn’t be so hard to pull apart. The croffle has this croissant pull-apart bread thing.
If you can, I recommend you to eat this with your egg rice. The sweetness of this dish contrasted with the salty egg rice.
3) Boneless Soy Garlic Fried Chicken
Korean Fried Chicken! One of my favourite things about Korean cuisine.
There are a few flavours to choose from like original, soy garlic, spicy, cheese, etc. There are also two different size portions (half or whole) as well as boneless or with bone.
When we ordered, the server informed us that there was only boneless chicken left. It worked out perfectly because that was what I was planning to get from the start.
Boneless chicken is easier to eat, don’t you think? No need to get your hands dirty although I did see other tables wearing disposable gloves while eating their chicken.
We went with the half-size boneless soy garlic chicken.
The dish has more fried chicken than you would expect. Honestly, I expected more fries than chicken because fries are cheaper.
There weren’t many fries. Don’t the few fries they have on the dish look sad?
The soy garlic chicken was my least favourite dish at Banchan and Cook. The garlic flavour wasn’t very strong in this one. Instead, it was the soy sauce flavour that was more obvious.
I preferred the original chicken more, which is a rarity. I always prefer soy garlic chicken over other KFC flavours (honey garlic chicken might be up there as well).
The chicken pieces also looked more like small chicken bites.
This lacks in comparison to Outdark and Red Chicken (another KFC restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui).
Both of those restaurants had bigger and juicier chicken. Could it be because I ordered the smaller portion? Maybe but wouldn’t the larger portion just have more chicken bites? I’m not sure if the chicken size would change.
Skip the soy garlic chicken and get another flavour instead.
What Dishes You Should Get at Banchan And Cook?
The table next to us got the fried pork cutlet with cheese and spaghetti carbonara. It looked pretty good.
If you like those dishes, it might be worth trying.
It’s too bad I went to Banchan and Cook with only one other person. If we went with more people, we could have tried more dishes.
If there are 2 things you must get at Banchan and Cook, it’s their egg rice and KFC. It’s what they’re most famous for.
Eating at Banchan and Cook
Something important to note is that when you book a table at Banchan and Cook, the automated message says you cannot be seated unless all parties arrive. The message also says the table is only reserved for 90 minutes.
I was worried about not being able to get seated because they only give you 10 minutes before giving your table away. The line was so long outside. What if we missed our time slot?
I arrived at the restaurant before my friend and thankfully, the restaurant got me seated.
Also, after my dining experience at Yat Tung Heen, I somewhat expected the waiters to warn us that our time was almost up. They didn’t. Our table was booked for 7 pm and we didn’t leave Banchan and Cook until a little around 9 pm.
The restaurant didn’t rush us but it could have been different if it was on a weekend.
The food is good quality and decently affordable. It’s worth coming here to eat and I definitely will visit again sometime in the future.
It’s too bad they don’t have any locations on the Kowloon side. It would be a hit with people living on that side of HK.
Now to You
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Xoxo,
Nicole