KIMPO
Will Korean fried chicken be enough to tempt residents to the busy end of Sheikh Zayed Road?
If you ask us, there’s a time and a place for fried chicken; the time is ‘always’, and the place is now Sheikh Zayed Road. Kimpo, a new Korean street food-inspired restaurant has opened at Conrad Dubai, in the street-level location once occupied by Little Black Door. Inside the restobar, it’s neon-heavy. There’s a huge fluorescent Kimpo sign on the ceiling, intermixed with colourful graffiti and TV screens playing K-pop on repeat. It’s loud and quirky but actually a lot of fun, too.
The half-page food menu is dominated by Korean fried chicken and diners need to first choose a flavour (spicy barbecue or signature barbecue) and then pick from wings (Dhs32 for six pieces, or just Dhs36 for 12) or drumsticks (Dhs34 for three pieces). Korean king of the crisp at Kimpo is Chef Lee, who breads the chicken in a special way, making the skin of the chicken mixed with the batter incredibly crunchy and flavourful. In addition to the customordered poultry, there’s a range of Asian specialities, each with a twist, including Korean bulgogi sloppy Joe (Dhs52) with kimchi and homemade barbecue sauce; an East-meets-West take on tacos (Dhs58) served with slow-cooked minced meat and Korean pickled onions; and Kimpo pizza (Dhs68) with salmon, kimchi mayonnaise, and yuzu jelly.
The food across the board is inventive rather than gimmicky. Sure, Asian-style pizza isn’t a new concept but the Kimpo version was sublime with a crispy base, paper-thin layer of fresh salmon, served with sesame seeds and seaweed. The comforting Korean kimchi fried rice (Dhs40) is a good vegan option (and great value, too), served in a large bowl with several hunks of lightly breaded tofu, but the star(s) of the show are deservedly the fried chicken. Salty, battered, and wondrously juicy – we must have ploughed through two portions of the boneless option before even looking up. Would we return? Let’s just say that for fried chicken, Kimpo is high up on the pecking order.
Conrad Dubai, Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai, Tue to Sun 5pm to 2am. Tel: (04) 444 7444. @kimpodxb