Last Friday, after my boss finally left for Singapore leaving behind his team of exhausted soldiers, Ernest and I decided to treat ourselves to a fiery treat of Korean Chilli Chicken.
This dish is highly recommended by Anya and the restaurant is the only one of its kind in the whole of Sydney, apparently. This dish is so powerfully spicy, that Anya warned us time and time again that it is not for the faint hearted.
So, we had to try and give our honest feedback here. The restaurant, Jin's BBQ Chilli Chicken is a hole-in-a-wall typical traditional type eatery located in Eastwood, which is about 1.5 hours from the airport & about 1 hour away from the city.
The long drive actually hightens our excitement for the chicken.
Check the restaurant out. Ernest is so fascinated with the logo, which he reckon is a cheap knock-off of a particularly popular sports brand. I thought it vaguely resembles a headless and legless chicken standing very straight & tall.
And its slogan is hilarious. I must salute the creator's creativity (or lack thereof).
As with every first time we eat at a restaurant, we like to ask the server what food they would recommend we try. We asked the server, who was a plump looking Korean lady about some recommendations but it seems that she could only speak in Korean. I repeated myself but she replied in Korean, smiling and shaking her head at the same time. If not for the fact that the poor girl is looking close to tears, I would have snapped and asked her loudly why she is here in Australia if she cannot speak basic English. My point is, even in all of Sydney's Chinese restaurants, all servers speak English, even though the English may be heavily accented. Come on. The boss himself, Mr Jin, came to her rescue and took the order chit from her.
He eyed us with suspicion when we told him we wanted to try the chilli chicken. He keep asking us if we are sure. I told him we are Chinese and we can eat spicy stuff. He say alright, and of course he had to warn us that the next day, we will feel tummy ache and have to go to toilet to poo and there is absolutely nothing wrong with his food apart from the fact that our delicate stomachs cannot handle his spicy chicken. Thanks Mr Jin; for telling us this even before our food came.
Check out Mr Jin's pan chans. Very homely feel. Like we are at home and there is no need to serve a dozen pan chans to impress tourists. I like. Esp the apple & pasta salad. The daikon is lightly marinated in sugar & vinegar and makes a very good starters indeed.
Alas! The piece de resistance is here! Steady, steady, we braced oursleves with the first bite. I was expecting a saucy dish of chilli sauce smothering the chicken pieces. But, when the sizzling hot plate was put in front of us, we were greeted with orange-coloured BBQ chicken pieces sizzling merrily away.
I popped a bite and was surprised that the first bite wasn't that spicy. Then it hit me. The spicy feeling hit me right where it hurts and I started to feel red around the ears. Ernest and I stared at each other in surprise. How can these cute little pieces of chicken contain such spice and heat that Ernest and I got caught so unawares?
Feeling stubborn, we bite and chew our way through several pieces and then we decided to raise the white flags. Ernest was sweating even though it was reportedly about 12degrees outside and he claims his legs were shaking from the spiciness of the chicken. I tried to talk but failed miserably when the chilli numbed my tongue and rendered my speech incomprehensible.
We drank cups after cups of iced water. Wah lau ah......no horse run man, this chilli chicken.
Dun play play.
This was me doing the regular pose for food with human shot. I was not smiling after a few pieces of that KFC
This is not a posed picture.
I am not sure if the boss took pity on us or he is genuinely nice but he spat a few Korean words at another young Korean server who quickly came to our table with a bowl of fancy looking brown rice with black stuff which I thought was seaweed, and it turns out, I was right.
This time, the server speaks English and told us that her boss Mr Jin wanted us to try the Korean rice balls free of charge. OK, we told her, let's try.
She very efficiently cut up 2 pieces of the chicken into tiny tiny pieces and mixed together with the specially prepared Korean rice & seaweed. Then she took some of the mixture in one hand and very quickly molded it into a beautiful oval shaped zushi, which Aussies like to call ship.
In no time at all, she made about 6 'ships' and told us to enjoy them. Tearing from the spicy chicken before, we gladly took up the offer. The 'ships' taste so so good. The rice was warm and fluffy; beautifully marinated in their special sesame oil and Korean sauce and rounded off perfectly with the pieces of seaweed. The spicy chicken added a touch of chewy-ness to the 'ship', which I can only described as 'YUMMY!' Definitely 2 thumbs up from me. I am ordering that again if I am coming back.
At the end of this fiery meal, we walked unceremoniously away from the restaurant (as our legs were still shaking from the spice) and into a Korean convenience shop to have a look and walk off the food. We were talking to the cashier, a chirpy old Korean guy with rosy cheeks who made a face when we told him we just finished a meal at Jin's opposite his store. He told us quite animatedly that 'no, we Koreans no eat that. Too spicy, too hot.'
Wow, talk about conquering that! We felt a bit proud of ourselves to know that even us, Singaporean Chinese, can tackle that spicy Korean BBQ chicken.
If you guys would like to cry your way through a meal of Jin's BBQ Chilli Chicken, you can find them at:
Jin's BBQ Chilli Chicken
104 Rowe Street
Eastwood, NSW 2122
T: 02 9804 8255
The parting slogan on the back of Mr Jin's business card warns, 'Eat at your own risk!'
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