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| - This is the place for authentic Taiwanese style large fried chicken! I've visited Hot Star frequently ever since they first opened their downtown Toronto location and now their Finch location. It is my go-to spot to satisfy my fried chicken cravings. There's other newer Taiwanese chicken places that have opened since then that I've tried, like Monga, but in my opinion Hot Star is still superior.
I think they've got fried chicken down to a science, not just the science of tasting good, but also eating enjoyment. Here's why:
- Each piece of chicken is huge, bigger than my hand. They've flattened the meat so it looks like a chicken steak, and this increases surface area for breading and thus the seasoning too. This is far better than thicker fried chicken pieces where the meat inside is not seasoned and tasteless
- Interestingly all of Hot Star's chicken has a few pieces of chicken bone left at about the bottom third of the meat. And they seem to always serve/bag the chicken in sich a way that the bones are towards the bottom 1/3. Some have commented how the small bones towards the bottom of each piece of chicken makes it less enjoyable. I think it actually enhances my eating experience. Starting from the top of this chicken steak you can take large satisfying bites into the chicken, and and the small bones towards 2/3 point forces you to slow down and pick out the bones. The bones are fun to pick out in my opinion, not too small as to make the experience frustrating but just enough for me to enjoying picking the meat off and licking my fingers like a little kid. Then toward the very end, the chicken is boneless again and I can finish my fried chicken with a few more bites of easy satisfaction. Hot Star's chicken have created the perfect fried chicken for me, changing my pace of eating and making my eating experience dynamically enjoyable.
Maybe I'm the only one that appreciates their fried chicken to this degree, but I definitely think they left the bone in their chicken for a reason.
I've tried all of the flavors of their original chicken, as well as the BBQ version, and cheese stuffed version. The original salt and pepper, and spicy flavors are the best, so try them based on your level of spicy tolerance. The seaweed, plum, and curry flavors are interesting but they don't give off as much of a strong taste as I've expected. They're just powdered flavoring that gets shaken with the fried chicken right before serving, so the taste has always been artificial to me. The plum flavor is especially weird, the sweetness doesn't really work with their chicken in my opinion.
BBQ fried chicken is average, as the hard shell of this particular batter tends to come off of the chicken during eating so you end up eating the batter and the pale piece of chicken separately. I have never bought it again after trying it the first time.
Cheese stuffed fried chicken is recent and I did enjoy it. Not much to say. Anything cheese stuffed deserves at least a try!
Drinks wise their Blue Curacao Yogurt drink is definitely very refreshing and unique. Highly recommend. Brings me back to my childhood in China.
If you have never tried Hot Star's fried chicken yet you definitely should! If you have before and you found my theory of eating dynamics with their chicken interesting (or weird), try their chicken again and see if you agree with me!
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