The Fry
280 Elgin St., Unit 3, 613-695-1300, thefry.ca
Open: Sunday to Thursday 5:30 p.m. to midnight, Friday and Saturday 5:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Prices: chicken dishes $16.99 to $29.99, sides $6.49 to $16.99
Access: no steps to front door or washrooms
My dining companion had higher hopes for dinner at the Fry than I did.
My fingers were crossed that the fried chicken — the near-singular focus of the restaurant’s menu — would be more crisp, flavourful and better sauced than at my previous visit. My pal, having grown up in Korea, said he wanted food that would make him cry with joy and recall his childhood.
It turned out that my expectations were met, but his were less so. My second dinner at the Fry was better than my first, probably due to better choices. My friend never quite grew teary, but he found the Fry’s dishes OK and, at their best, reminiscent of his youth’s snacks and street food in his homeland, albeit with higher prices.
The Fry opened on Elgin Street more than a month ago, where Tao Asian Kitchen, which lasted less than two years, had been. The new place’s specialty is Korean fried chicken, which in recent years has achieved international fame for thin, shatteringly crisp coatings, succulent meat and saucing that irresistibly unites spicy, sweet and sour.
The other KFC, you could call it, flourishes not only in Korea but beyond, thanks to franchise operations such as Bonchon Chicken and Kyochon, which have outposts in the U.S. and Asia.
The Fry is a Toronto-based Korean fried chicken upstart. In addition to its four GTA locations, there’s now this one on Elgin, bringing full-on Korean fried chicken to Ottawa where perhaps one or two obscure eateries — one that was on Rideau Street has closed — have served it in recent years.
The Elgin Street Fry is a youthful, lounge-like place of 40 or so seats split among tables, the window-facing counter and the bar, which serves fruit-tinged Korean rice wines as a specialty. It isn’t open for lunch but it’s open late — until either midnight or 2 a.m. nightly. When I’ve arrived for early dinners, it’s been packed with a young, mostly Asian clientele.
Meals at the Fry have begun with a bewildering starter on the house — a platter of steaming-hot corn in a sweet cheese sauce. If it was a Korean dish, my Korean friend was nonetheless bewildered.
After that, we’ve tried myriad variations on fried chicken, which are described too vaguely on the menu.
First, it’s worth noting that a “small” portion of chicken is not that small in terms of price (up to $20) or quantity, while “large” portions, up to $30, are immense. A small order of chicken (roughly half a chicken cut in small pieces) plus a side dish or two should feed two, I think, although a larger party would want to try more than one type of chicken.
But what type? Chicken here is available fried or “crispy,” (which I think means double-fried, for an extra dollar) or boneless, with a range or sauces or garnishes — sweet and sour (simply referred to as “sauce” on the menu), spicy, soy-garlic and green onion.
Summing up my experience, I’d say that I prefer the boneless chicken because the meat was all dark and also juicier. Other fried chicken servings included white meat that was sometimes dry and seemed under-seasoned, plus necks, which were all coating and no meat.
Sauce-wise, the basic sweet-and-sour red sauce worked for me, as did its spicier cousin. I was less keen on the soy-garlic sauce, which seemed to factor in the powdery component that made the menu’s garlic butter fries odd and off-putting.
You’re better off with standard-variety fries or sweet potato fries at the Fry, although to be honest, my favourite starch was a serving of spicy rice cakes. Spongy and mouth-warming, that side is certainly more outré and not for everybody. But the glowing heat of it made my Korean friend smile and say that the Fry had gotten it right.
More tepid, but comforting, was the fish cake soup, which placed slices of fish balls, pollock products, cabbage and green onion in a clear, mild broth that seemed less than home-made, but was still tasty.
There are no desserts on the menu here. After plates of fried, spiced, oily food and enough beer or rice wine to wash it down, would you really want some cheesecake?
The Fry doesn’t seem to produce Korean fried chicken at the fetish-worthy levels achieved elsewhere. But the company is first to market in Ottawa, which counts for something. Let’s hope for competition.
phum@postmedia.com
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