When one of New York City's favorite restaurateurs and chefs, David Chang, opened the first Fuku restaurant in 2015, it was an ode to Chang's favorite childhood food: fried chicken. Having grown up on Chick-fil-A in the suburbs of Virginia, Chang described Fuku as "our attempt to ... honor the great fried-chicken places and fast-food concepts out there ... and hopefully, to make it better."
The fried chicken shop has been widely popular, but how does their high-end sandwich stack up to the classic fast food it was inspired by? We called on our in-house fastfood experts to do a blind taste test, and the results are in.
Below, see our comparison of Fuku's spicy fried chicken sandwich and KFC's Chicken Little combo. They both consist of fried chicken served between two buns with pickles, plus one or two condiments to add some extra flavor.
SEE ALSO: We tested fried chicken sandwiches from every major fast-food chain — and the winner surprised us
We ordered Fuku's sandwich via Caviar, a Square-owned food delivery service that partners with higher-end independent restaurants that don't typically deliver. The sandwich is $8, which for the size of the chicken, is reasonable compared to its fast-food counterparts — however, there is a $15 dollar delivery minimum on Caviar.
The quality of the chicken meat immediately differentiates it from your average fast-food fried chicken. Both white and dark meat is used for the sandwich — something that did not go unnoticed by our taste testers, who could tell it was unprocessed. It was fattier, more stringy, and had more gristle.
The bun has a light spread of "fuku butter," a recipe that is highly guarded. This butter was almost undetectable upon first bite, but it did keep the bread a bit more soft and moist.
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