Felt like having some good old American style fried Chicken and over the past few months, I had been trying various local brands who do that crispy Cornmeal / Corn Flakes coated Fried Chicken instead of the most popular KFC and this post is where I am talking about my favourite one among the bunch… Its called Al Baike Fried Chicken and they are located in the Kulathoor area near Kazhakuttom… The reason I decided to try this place in the first place is cause it was recommended by a friend of mine who assured me that the taste is better than any other… So, this post is about the same…
Clearly the name is based on the famous fried chicken chain Albaik from Saudi Arabia and packing style and even the appearance of the Chicken pieces is similar to pretty much every other similar place… However, what makes this place unique is the taste as this place does a spicy and flavourful marination on the Chicken thats hardly seen in any of the other places done along with the amount of breading with this level of perfection… Why I say that is cause from my experience, pretty much every other place either screws up the amount of breading or the cooking level of the same making it too tough to chew that you will probably need a dental appointment after eating it or gets the balance of flavours just wrong where the marination is either too spicy or completely bland and/or inadequate (as in flavours don’t get absorbed by the meat) or get the Cooking level of the Chicken wrong where its either undercooked or completely overcooked and hence dry inside… Many of them even get the oil usage wrong where they cook it in wrong temperatures resulting in the pieces being too oily as they end up being boiled in oil instead of being fried…
The Chicken pieces here were cooked just right, though the breast meat tends to be very very slightly overdone once in a while… Thankfully, I have never had an undercooked piece of Chicken from them so far… The flavour profile was always perfectly balanced between the taste of Chicken meat being very visible along with the spices and seasonings… You can also feel the taste of the breading as well as the fragrance of the oil used for frying, although the pieces themselves were not oily/greasy in any way, which is the sign of a perfect frying process… The options of accompaniments here are Garlic Paste and Cole Slaw in addition to the quintessential Tomato Ketchup… The Garlic Paste had a nice flavour of Garlic and was seasoned well but sadly they seemed to have been thickened with Corn Starch which I felt was unnecessary as it caused a congealed texture… The Cole Slaw on the other hand, I loved every bit of it… The vegetables were crunchy and it had just the right level of creaminess and sweetness… They all work well with the Chicken individually but I personally felt that its not a good idea to mix them together… 🙂
So, thats it… The reason I wrote this post is that I think this team deserves the continued support at-least from us foodies who care more about quality and taste rather than just brand names… If you haven’t tried this, it is my suggestion that you do and of-course, if you have already, then obviously you don’t need me to tell you 🙂
