There’s a new KFC in town, and no, it’s not the franchise you’re thinking of.
Chimax Canada recently held a soft opening on Nov. 22. The Korean fried chicken (KFC) spot is located at 10620 Yonge St. in Richmond Hill.
“Korean fried chicken differs to traditional fried chicken in many ways,” says owner Jae Sung Kim. “We use a different combination of flours and spices for the batter. The most special thing about Korean fried chicken is that there is a variety of Korean traditional sauces to choose from. Also, they tend to think outside the box and put shredded cheddar cheese on top of the chicken and it just melts on the batter; it tastes better than you can imagine!”
With seven years of cooking experience, Kim works alongside his brother, Jea Hoon Kim, who came up with all of the fried chicken recipes you’ll find on the menu.
According to Kim, Richmond Hill was an ideal spot to open the brand’s first-ever location due to a lack of competing fried chicken joints in the area. “We do have a second store coming up at York Blvd in York University,” hints Kim. “We don’t have an exact date of the opening just yet, but we will begin to renovate the place pretty soon.”
The Food
Chimax Canada’s menu is devoted to crispy Korean fried chicken that’s done in a variety of flavours including the original crispy fried style, Korean spicy chicken, soy garlic pepper chicken, creamy onion chicken, golden cheddar cheese chicken, and cheddar cheese seasoned chicken. Chimax also sells crispy fried chicken wings available by the pound in the same flavours.
Chicken can be ordered in half or whole portions, and can also be done boneless for an extra $2. All of the boneless chicken is cooked using skinless chicken thighs.
While fried chicken is the star of the menu, you can also add several tasty sides to your order, like fries (with or without that special cheddar seasoning on them), onion rings, fried camembert cheese, baked tomato spaghetti with cheese, chicken mayo rice, spicy rice cakes (with or without cheese), clam soup, and cheese nachos.
For dunking, don’t miss Chimax’s selection of sauces, all made in-house from scratch.
“My favorite is soy pepper garlic sauce at the moment but every other one is equally good,” says Kim.
Need a little something to wash it all down? Chimax also sells a selection of soju liquor (including flavoured soju in sunhari, grape, and citron), as well as bottled beers, like Molson Canadian, Coors Light, and Guiness, and pints of Canadian, Sapporo, and Hoegaarden.
Chimax Canada is open every day from 12 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. You can order for takeout, or find Chimax Canada on UberEats.