K-Coop is bringing the heat, literally and figuratively, with their new Korean Fried Chicken restaurant located in Morton Grove. It’s definitely not your traditional fried chicken, or chicken wings, but it’s quickly becoming one of our favorite chicken joints in the area, and we’ve been telling everyone we know about it.
K-Coop Korean fried chicken opened up about a month ago in a space that used to be a restaurant called Marilyn’s, in Morton Grove. It’s a relatively large building, so I was a little surprised that a place like this was opening up in that location, but now that we’ve tried it, we’re extremely happy it did.
We have yet to go into the restaurant itself, but based on their instagram photos, it seems like they adopted the same colors as Buffalo Wild Wings. If you blindfolded someone and walked them inside, they probably would assume it’s a bdubs until they see the menu, that’s how similar a feel it is… but that’s where the similarities end.
K-Coop is focused on Korean fried chicken, which is fried chicken/chicken wings, with Korean inspired spices and sauces, and it’s amazing. We’ve had it three times already, two of those times were less than 24-hours apart, and everyone we’ve had try it agrees with us that it’s incredible… especially that Soy Honey flavor.
[So… unfortunately I did not take any photos of the actual chicken, because we were so excited to jump into it and eat, so I hope K-Coop doesn’t mind me borrowing one from their instagram until I can get a shot of my own. ]Korean Fried Chicken Menu
K-Coop mainly focuses on chicken, but there is a burger on the menu that looks pretty good as well. I just can’t bring myself to try it since the chicken is so delicious, but I may have to try the K-BBQ (Bulgogi) Burger soon.
They also offer a variety of sides that you can order with your chicken and we’ve tried a few of them so far… and by that I mean we’ve only had the curly fries and they were pretty good.
Forget the rest of the menu though, let’s talk about the real show stopper here, the fried chicken.
The way I recommend ordering the chicken is to go with the wing mix and get an order of the K-Coop Fried Chicken and an order of the Korean Style Seasoned Chicken. The K-Coop Fried Chicken is just your traditional, breaded, fried chicken, with no sauce on it. It’s amazing on its own, but I recommend these ones because then you can order different sauces to try. By doing it this way you’re not locked into a single sauce, and if you don’t particularly care for a specific sauce, or it’s too spicy, you won’t be stuck with an entire order of wings drenched in that sauce.
An order of 10 wing mixed K-Coop Fried Chicken with a couple difference sauces gives you a great opportunity to try the chicken on its own, and then with however much sauce you want to put on them, whereas the Korean Style Seasoned Chicken is tossed in your choice of sauce.
So far we’ve tried four of the 20, different sauces that K-Coop offers and we’ve enjoyed all of them, but the real star of the show is the Soy Honey sauce… in my opinion.
The Soy Honey sauce is nice and sweet with a very tiny tang too it (we’re talking basically no heat at all, but you get more than just the honey flavor). We’ve ordered this flavor all three times we’ve ordered from the restaurant and our good friend even ordered herself a box of the Soy Honey a couple days after having it at our house… it’s that good.
I would say my second favorite sauce is the K-BBQ sauce. It’s a Korean Style BBQ Galbi Sauce that’s also pretty sweet without a ton of spice, but has a different flavor profile than the soy honey. If you’re going to try any two sauces, and spicy isn’t your thing, I highly recommend the Soy Honey and the K-BBQ.
If you’re looking for something with a little more kick, we also have tried the Spicy Rookie and the Soy Spicy.
I would say that the Soy Spicy is definitely sweeter, with less of a kick than the Spicy Rookie, but still has a bit of a kick to it. The Spicy Rookie is a step up on the heat scale, but if you really like spicy foods, you may want to move up to the Spicy Major or the Spicy Pro… neither of which I’m willing to try.
If you’re looking for a creamier sauce, they also offer Creamy Onion, Creamy Garlic, Creamy Peppers, and Creamy Truffle Aioli… which, again, aren’t really my thing, so I haven’t tried them.
Basically, if you like chicken wings and are looking for something a little different, K-Coop should be at the top of your list.
I know it seems like there’s this sudden boom in Korean Fried Chicken restaurants, especially in this area, but I was blown away by how good K-Coop was… Now, unfortunately, places like BB.Q Chicken in Niles and Choong Man Chicken in Glenview, have some big shoes to fill when it comes to Korean Fried Chicken, and I can’t wait to try them both.
K-Coop may have dethroned The Whistle Stop Cafe as my favorite fried chicken in the Chicagoland area.
Are there other Korean fried chicken places in the Chicagoland area that I should try? Or have you had K-Coop, BB.Q or Choong Man and like those better? Let me know in the comments… I’m all about that Korean fried chicken right now!
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