I did some research a year back on what food critics consider to be the "best fried chicken in America." I took every list of best fried chicken that I could find on the internet going back two decades, parsed out closed restaurants and made a spreadsheet of over 240 fried chicken joints. Each mention on a list was one "vote" for the best fried chicken in America (and therefore the world). I came out with a definitive list of the best places to get fried chicken... a Fried Chicken Bucket List, if you will. [1]

In case anyone's wondering, #1 (Willie Mae's Scotch House) came in at 22/25 votes and #2 (Gus's World Famous Chicken) came in at 16/25 votes.

One thing I noticed while researching the top fried chicken restaurants - a LOT of them use lard instead of vegetable oil or something else. Also, duration of brine was at least 24 hours.

Another thing that I'll mention is that fried chicken from Willie Mae's is incredibly similar to Korean fried chicken - in fact, it's also double fried. Would love to hear from others that have tried it to see if they think the same, too!

I'm going to need to give Chicken Mary's and Chicken Annie's a try on my next roadtrip.

[1] https://thehighestcritic.com/munchies/the-fried-chicken-buck...

Wow, never knew I'd be talking about cooking on HN! I learned from Seriouseats (correction: the Food Lab book[1]) to double fry your restaurant fried chicken leftovers (or don't even wait for them to be leftovers) and, most importantly, make a dipping sauce (or two, or three) to match your current craving[2].

[1] https://bookshop.org/books/the-food-lab-better-home-cooking-...

[2] https://www.seriouseats.com/2012/03/upgrade-your-fried-chick...

I've been curious about McDonald's fries since I think they are tasty. There are many articles around that still say they use beef products in their french fries. According to their website they do not use beef, but a "beef flavoring" that contains milk products and not beef product.

https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/small-french-frie...

Yes this is true. It's a beef flavoring. My father spent the majority of his career in food-processing engineering working in a factory that made McDonald's french fries and confirmed this was the case. They're also par-cooked (pre-fried) before being flash frozen, and they don't use a batter or seasoning. Interesting tidbit, all of their competitors had their fries made in the same facility. I believe most of them even used the same type of potatoes.

> Best fried chicken has to be Korean fried chicken at this point.

Two things I don't like about Korean fried chicken:

- Some places don't seem to marinade the meat enough, so the tasty fried skin is met with bland white meat inside; and

- Many places consider the drumette and flats to be separate pieces, while Southern fried chicken places consider the entire wing as one piece.

You first points is not a property of the food style, just bad cooking.

The bland meat seems to be endemic among Korean fried chicken places here (and I'm talking chain restaurants, which are supposed to be more consistent) — I'm not sure if it's the food style or cooking skill.

I've tried Korean fried chicken quite few times and I was disappointed. We even supposedly have quite a bit of good Korean restaurants here, but alas KFC or even air-fried frozen chicken always won me.

What city have you tried it in? Its relatively new in the US and it was becoming trendy so there are a lot of places that still do a pretty bad job since most people don't have a baseline. Its basically like sushi 15 years ago. So far in Chicago, I've only found one place that comes close to what I had in Tokyo's Koreatown (which admittedly isn't actually Korea)

Auckland, NZ. Plenty of good (and cheap btw) Korean food here. Just not fried chicken. Or Vietnamese.

Have you tried the Almond Chicken at Pocha?

I remember going to place perhaps right next to it was being unimpressed for countless time. Might try soon!

Though whenever I'm in CBD I go to Boracay Garden - filipino food was my biggest discovery in NZ (admittedly it's only two same dishes - pork sisig and chicken adobo).

My ex-gf’s dad from the South made us fried chicken for Thanksgiving Dinner one year. He wouldn’t let on anything about his recipe or methods but it had this distinct buttery taste (which was awesome), I figure frying in clarified butter was part of his secret.

I’ve started using lard as my secret ingredient. Everyone loves my cooking, except one acquaintance who turned out to be vegetarian. I make sure to let people know what my “secret ingredient” is before they eat now.

There's beautiful things produced when something made traditionally suddenly hits a new culture that looks at it in new ways.

Korea with fried chicken, NY with pizza, Australian/NZ with coffee.

We recently deviated from our normal wings place to get some korean fried chicken and it was heavenly. Excellent texture, great seasonings and very creative fusion-style sides.