FOMO Makes Fine Southern-Fried Korean

After you’ve had the spicy Korean chicken with mashed potatoes, it’s hard to go back.

(Henry Cromett)
Who knew Southern and Korean food were made for each other?
If you’d mentioned that idea to me a year ago, I would’ve shrugged. Sure, they both make good use of grills and pickled things. But it seems like a bit of a forced mash-up—maybe even the Brad Paisley featuring LL Cool J’s “Accidental Racist” of fusion cuisine.

Then we got Kim Jong Smokehouse, a collaboration between Han Ly Hwang of Kim Jong Grillin' and BJ Smith of Smokehouse Tavern, which took Smith's smoked meats and teamed them with Hwang's bibimbap to glorious effect. Now it's Sun Kim's FOMO Chicken, a new cart at the pod behind Crema at Southeast 28th and Ankeny.

FOMO has been around for about a year in pop-up form. In May they went full-time with their own cart serving up Korean-fried chicken, katsu and Southern sides.

The menu is chicken-centric. I'd advise you to get a half bird ($14, more than enough to feed two), half spicy and half sweet garlic. The pieces, which are cut smaller than an American butcher does by default, are dredged in a Korean blend of corn starch and potato starch. Both sauces are sticky and mildly sweet with a tiny prickle of heat. Both come coated in sesame seeds, adding a little nuttiness and umami to the juicy flesh and sticky sauce.

The sides (all $2) are the sort of standards you’d expect from a Southerner like Kim, who is from Atlanta, and all very good. A little bowl of corn is rich and buttery. The pickled daikon is slightly acidic with a nice crunch. The mashed potatoes are some of the best I’ve had in recent memory—red-skin potatoes made rich with a healthy dose of butter and milk.
You can get rice ($1) instead. But after you’ve had the spicy Korean chicken with mashed potatoes, it’s hard to go back.
GO: FOMO Chicken, 113 SE 28th Ave., 503-308-0258, fomochicken.com. Noon-8 pm daily.

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