At Bb.q Chicken, Korean Fried Chicken Lands In Amherst | Restaurants

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The Half and Half, original golden and secret spicy wings, at bb.q Chicken.

Korean fried chicken chain bb.q Chicken opened at 1424 Millersport Highway in Amherst.

Maple Crunch wings at bb.q Chicken, 1424 Millersport Highway, Amherst.

Kimchi fried rice with egg at bb.q Chicken, 1424 Millersport Highway, Amherst.

Trigger warnings have been derided as lefty professor coddling, but they have a long-standing place in polite American society. How often has someone telegraphed a bombshell with: “Brace yourself”?

It is only polite to ease your listener into a comfy chair mentally before unleashing news that could wobble their knees.

Such as: What if Buffalo wings are not the best fried chicken digits on the planet? What if there was another wing that soared above the pride of Buffalo?

It’s a lot, I know. Settle in and hear me out.

Secret Sauce Chicken at BBQ Chicken, 1424 Millersport Highway, Amherst.

Koreans learned to fry chicken from American soldiers. In the 1970s, Korean restaurateurs wielded spicy sauces and Korean technique to come up with a distinctly new fried chicken.

Korean fried chicken tosses chicken parts in a seasoned flour mixture for an initial hot oil bath, rendering out the skin under the crust. Then, it’s fried a second time, producing a remarkably crisp crust over tender meat. It’s terrific straight up and what Amherst Korean chicken outpost bb.q Chicken calls Golden Original.

At bb.q Chicken, 1424 Millersport Highway, near the North Campus of the University at Buffalo, devotees have been digging the Korean chain's s…

But the real fun comes with the saucing. The crust holds up. The result is unusually fun crispy chicken, thanks to finishes ranging from sweet (crunchy maple) to fiery (hot spicy).

Crunchy maple, that’s right. Clad in garlic butter and maple syrup, these are the first dessert wings I can get behind. Crunchy as all get out, yet not so cloyingly sweet you have the impulse to check your blood sugar.

Maple Crunch Chicken at bb.q Chicken, 1424 Millersport Highway, Amherst.

The chain restaurant, one of 1,000 locations worldwide, opened two months ago in an apartment block near the University at Buffalo's North Campus with first-floor restaurants, including Santora’s Pizza Pub & Grill, in a space that was last Fuze Asian Grill.

UB students from left, Wingky Chen, Winnie Chen, from Brooklyn, and Nicoletta Lambrianidis of Gates, NY, enjoy dinner together at BB.Q Chicken, 1424 Millersport Highway in Amherst.

Order from the counter, get a beeper and fetch your food. It’s swift enough for a work lunch. There’s no alcohol available, yet, so it’s soft drinks all around.

Medium (nine for $14.45) and large (18/$27.54) are the standard lots, but you can ask for other numbers. Boneless chicken can replace wings in all menu selections.

Korean barbecue fans should check out the galbi version, sauced like the king of the Korean grilled beef cuts. Smoky-sweet with deep umami resonance, it offers practically everything but the grill.

Gangam style stood out to our table for its bracing balance of black pepper, onions, chile and garlic, more tangy than sticky-sweet. Potent and memorable, but not painful enough to make you do that dance.

Though if you’re looking for a lick of pleasant pain, “hot spicy” has you covered with straightforward Duff’s-hot-level radiation.

Of them all, the sweetly flaming version (hot mala) caught my fancy, with smoky, tingly bites of chicken ecstasy. Flame shot through a prism of Sichuan spices with a balancing honey note to keep you from despair: that’s a heck of a ride on one chicken wing.

There were a few letdowns. While I approve of cheese in almost all guises, the mixture of dairy snow cast over the “cheesling” wings left me cold.

Besides fried chicken, there are two classic Korean comfort food dishes on the menu that are both worth exploring.

Kimchi fried rice at bb.q Chicken, 1424 Millersport Highway, Amherst.

Kimchi fried rice ($12.95) gets wok-tossed for smokiness, but instead of soy sauce coloring the grains, it’s kimchi sauce. Add cheese ($2) and an egg ($1) if you want to get stuck all the way in.

Ddeok-bokki ($11.95) sounds like a Klingon curse. It is actually a terrific Korean pasta dish, featuring rice noodles the size of Halloween Tootsie Rolls. More tender, though still a chewfest, it is available in a variety of settings, including rose ($12.95), a creamy chile-infused sauce or mala, powered with the Sichuan-forward numbfest sauce. Fish cake, a sort of thin-sliced fish meatball, adds a gentle seafood dimension.

Get it Korean parmed – processed cheese ($2) melted over the whole dish – for the real Seoul food experience. (The processed cheese was another U.S. Army addition to Korean cuisine.) A fried egg ($1) takes it all the way.

When it arrives, give it a gentle stir to get the cheese blended in, and it’s mac and cheese by way of Daegu.

Ddeok-Bokki, Korean rice pasta, with egg at bb.q Chicken, 1424 Millersport Highway, Amherst.

It is fair to say there is little to draw vegans or vegetarians here. Cubed radish kimchi ($.95), sweet as bread-and-butter pickles, but still refreshing, is a traditional Korean fried chicken accompaniment. There’s also French fries ($5.95), sweet potato fries ($6.95), cole slaw ($4.95) and onion rings ($7.95), but everything else is animal-involved. Also, there is no gluten-free menu.

Is Korean fried chicken better than Buffalo wings? Depends on where you were born, I’d say. In the end, I know which I’d have for my last meal.

Golden chicken wings at bb.q Chicken, 1424 Millersport Highway, Amherst.

But Korean fried chicken is still fantastic. Perhaps, in the end, it is more accurate to say that there’s no real head-to-head here. These are different sports. How much point is there to arguing over who was the better athlete, Dominik Hasek or Bruce Smith?

Could there be a better wing? I’d like to think it’s possible.

One thing for sure: This ain’t your dad’s KFC.

1424 Millersport Highway, Amherst (bbdotqchicken.com, 716-428-3458)

Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily

Prices: chicken, whole, wings or boneless, $14.45-$24.45; other dishes, $4-$18.

Send restaurant tips to agalarneau@buffnews.com and follow @BuffaloFood on Instagram and Twitter.

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