CheeMc

To all my chicken lover buddies, Forget about KFC at any Korean restaurants and come here. Cheemc is famous for their authentic Korean Fried Chicken. It’s been 6 months since my last visit the restaurant it looks so much better now. I guess their business has gone very well! The chicken is coated with a very thin and crispy then cover with the chosen flavours (garlic, sweet soy, honey butter, yangnyum)
3 people and we have 2 chickens 3 flavours and they are all good! Our favourite is the yangnyum. It’s sweet and spicy but just a bit spicy. Honey butter is also good I love the smell of butter and also the taste of cheese powder. Sweet soy is also nice. I ask for less sauce on the chicken because the last time too much sauce made my chicken not crispy any more. The garlic flavour is my less favourite it’s a bit too garlicky and boring imo. However, chicken is the only dish you should really order her. I order some order dish but it’s quite disappointing
17.50−18.50 for a whole chicken! What a bargain

So watching the gorgeous Jun Ji Hyun devour Korean fried chicken in the hit drama series «My Love From Another Star» made me crave for Korean fried chicken as well. CheeMc had good reviews with promising pictures of the goods that I wanted. I took a day off from work (read: I called in sick) to venture off into Central London to find this place. It was relatively easy to find, and I was greeted promptly. I got the lunch special — 4 succulent BONELESS (had to emphasize on this as I thought there were gonna be bones) pieces of chicken thighz. Really good.
The only weird thing is when I ordered a sparkling water, the waiter poured me a glass and took away the bottle. When it came to paying, I was charged for the bottle — to which I pointed out to him and he kindly apologized and brought me the rest of the bottle.
Bonus; if you hare a kpop fan, you will absolutely dig their bathrooms.

Edited 17 August.
Been here probably six times now. I won’t say that my esteem for this place is plummeting, but it is definitely declining.
The pluses are there:
1) Excellent excellent spicy fried chicken
2) makgeoli available for drinking
3) very large portions of food. (i came after 2 hours of climbing ravenously hungry at 9:30 pm and went away full.)
4) This is the only Korean food I know of anywhere in this part of South London
5) reasonable prices
Growing list of minuses:
1) no free banchan.
2) taste of other dishes (besides chicken) mediocre. Sauce on the jajangbap the first time was watery. Second time I had japchae and they were overcooked and sticky to the point that they came out in a ball.
3) card accepted sporadically– sometimes card machine ‘isn’t working’ — best to roll with cash
4) service also depends on who’s working. Sometimes it has been good and very friendly, other times I’ve had to do things like ask for chopsticks and napkins, which were thereupon grudgingly supplied in the bare minimum amount
5) seems like half the menu is not being served. The chicken will always be on, so that’s good
6) There are often people smoking outside the usually-​open front door (both patrons and chefs), and sometimes the smoke blows back into the restaurant
7) gave me a bit of a stomachache the next day.
Note: ¼ of a fried chicken is a large enough portion for one person. ½ may leave one feeling greasy. Caveat emptor

If you’ve looked at my profile, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of fried chicken. I fell in love with the other KFC (Korean fried chicken) on a holiday in Seoul and that love was enhanced by visits to Bonchon in the USA
I was alerted to CheeMc by one of London’s food bloggers. He described some yummy KoFC, so I made an expedition to south east London
CheeMc is located on Walworth Rd, a cosmopolitan neighbourhood located a short walk south of Elephant & Castle Tube station. I passed Chinese, Indian, Caribbean, Latin American, African and Vietnamese restaurants on the way down to CheeMc
I’m glad that the blogger gave me a heads up because I’d never have gone in here. Even with a heads up, I managed to walk past the place on the first pass. When I arrived at 8.15, the place was already rammed. It had the healthy buzz of a good Asian restaurant — lots of noise and hilarity, surrounded by lots of good food and family. The clientele was almost exclusively made up of Korean students, a good sign
Despite the chaotic bonhomie, the smiley waitresses remained steadfastly cheerful, responding to all requests promptly. As there was no space when I arrived, I asked for some chicken to take away. The waitress warned me that the food would take 30 minutes and as it turned out, a space did open up in that time. I sat down and added an order of noodles. I wanted to try the jajan noodles with black bean sauce but the waitress said there was a problem with the noodles, so chef had taken it off the menu. I like that — internal quality control. I therefore went for japchae (glass noodles) with pork, which had a satisfying depth of umami
There’s a big choice of fried chicken with various sauces. The waitress said that the most popular was with sweet chilli sauce. The only shame was that the chicken only comes in whole or half chicken sizes. As a single diner, I would have liked to have tried more than one flavour. Not if the other KFC uses midget chickens but here, the KoFC half chicken was chopped into around 10 easy to handle pieces, which would have added up to a big chick
When it arrived, it rekindled great memories of my trips to Seoul and the USA. Light crispy batter with tender chicken inside, enhanced by the sauce. The best KoFC I’ve had in London yet
I will be back. Just don’t all create a crush so that I can’t get a table!