Restaurants

We’re Kinda in Love with Zabu’s Korean Fried Chicken

But they're in really good company.

By Neal McLennan /

We’re living in a golden age of golden chicken. After years in the hinterland, not a week goes by anymore that a new spot doesn’t pop up, paint still drying on the sign, to offer some variation of dredged, breaded and lovingly deep-fried poultry.

There’s Fighter Chicken and Rib & Chicken in Marpole, Chirpyhut in the Cambie Village, and C&T on Burrard, with Le Coq Frit just around the corner on Broadway and Donky a few blocks east—and that’s just the tip of the drumstick.

READ MORE: Our Editors Draft the Best Chicken Sandos in Vancouver

But it wasn’t always biscuit wheels on a gravy train bound for Nashville in July. Before this current onslaught, before the quantum shift of Downlow or the pioneering of Juke, there was Zabu, one of those oddball spots on lower Robson with a weird font and worse decor—but they had vision.

They brought the Korean Fried Chicken (KFC) phenomenon to town, dressed with either the original light soy, the trendsetting Zabu hot or one of their eccentric variations: the puffed rice of Sal Sal chicken or the chili garlic of Yang Nyum.

And, notwithstanding the competition they face from literally every quadrant of the city, the place still nails it night in, night out (there’s never been any lunch service here) like the OG of KFC.