Lucky Chan’s Chairman Mao’s Popcorn Chicken and Boom Boom Chicken Bao

Value
Look
Smell
Crunch
Taste

Lucky Chan is a Chinese/Japanese/Western fusion restaurant in Northbridge and the subject of this weeks fried chicken review!

A few friends and I managed to get along there and after a short wait got a table on the roof.

We ordered Chairman Mao’s Popcorn chicken ($13) and a few beers to start.

The popcorn chicken arrives in a large cardboard cup, with a small amount of mayonnaise. To be honest, for $13 dollars I would have expected to get more chicken than what was delivered, but as a starter its sufficient for two to three people.

However the chicken itself did not look very appetising, and the garnish looked a little sickly. I believe instead of cutting the chicken, battering it and then frying it – they fried full thigh pieces and then cut them up with a cleaver. As a result there is a lot of un-battered chicken showing and a lot of lone crispy batter included in the cup.

The popcorn chicken does have a slight crunch, and the pieces had a nice smell of pepper and chilli.

The chicken was overcooked and slightly dry, but it combined well with the mayonnaise which made up for it. But, there is was not nearly enough mayonnaise provided to supply the entire chicken cup. This became more of a problem near the middle of the cup as all the large pieces had been eaten and we were left with very small bits which you could only pickup with chopsticks.

It did have a nice taste of chilli with a bit of heat to it, which increased as you ate more.

Although I was left underwhelmed by the popcorn chicken stater, I continued hopeful that the Boom Boom Chicken Bao (Chicken Karaage Bao) would be better.

I was wrong.

For starters each Bao was $8 which is frankly unreasonable for a very small piece of fried chicken and for smell, you can’t detect anything other than the Japanese mayonnaise.

Biting into it, it didn’t have any crunch at all and wasn’t hot. At most it was luke warm. The chicken also had no recognisable taste and it seemed that all of the flavor came from the mayonnaise and sauce.

It was not the easiest thing to finish.

I can’t in all good faith recommend either item we tried tonight and I was dissatisfied with the whole experience.

I won’t be going back unless they release new menu items with at much better price point.