On the surface, Dr Krunch looks like another fried chicken place, but when you look at their menu, it is more than that.
I have on several occasions, reiterated that I am not a big fan of deep-fried food. Especially most of the time they are just very dry and pimple inducing. To be honest with you, I had no intention to try Dr Krunch at all when my colleague first talked about it with me. My colleague is a fitness and diet conscious person, but then his love of Dr Krunch was something I could not understand. So, one day, in the midst of the pandemic, and out of curiosity, I decided to give it a go.
I ordered a standard Dr Ori burger meal without much expectation. To my surprise, the chicken was fried after the order was made, so that gave me a bit more confident as they are not pre-fried pieces being kept warm in a lot of fast-food outlets. Because of that, one needs to expect a longer wait there for the food as compared to your usual fast-food outlet. When the food arrived, it feels hot and fresh, and of course each bite was extremely crunchy. What surprised me was that it was not dry at all. Yes, the skin was crunchy and dry but for the meat, it was still juicy and tender. For each burger you can have a sauce of your choice, so I went for the spicy sauce, which to me was not spicy at all despite the three-chilli sign. But then the sauce did enrich the taste of the burger and the fried chicken, making it less one dimensional. I was quite satisfied with the quality, however, since it was fried food, I didn’t go back until the next outing with the same colleague again.
The second time I went there, we went with one more colleague, who apparently is also a fan of Dr Krunch. To be truthful, I was surprised that it has more than one fan in my social and work circle, as it is, well, just fried food. This time I made the mistake of ordering a fried chicken pack as there were lots of chicken, basically too much for lunch. I thought I was going to waste it because there were zero chances that I can finish off that many pieces of fried chicken for lunch. My colleagues were thinking the same and suggested me to take some home in case I couldn’t finish it. I tried not to as fried chicken is never nice after a while. To my surprise, during chatting and eating, I actually finished the whole box of chicken, including the chips that came with it. I was as shocked as my colleagues, as they also knew my lack of enthusiasm for deep fried food. That is the testimony of how good the quality and taste of Dr Krunch’s fried chicken. Since then, I have been back again to tried on different items on the menu.
For me, which I could be wrong, Dr Krunch’s fried chicken is akin more to Korean fried chicken than your generic western fried chicken. The crunchy layer was rich in taste and the spices in the fry mix compliments the juicy and tender chicken inside perfectly. The surprise is that it does not taste greasy for me, a non-deep-fried food lover, at all. I think that is what made Dr Krunch stood out from the rest of the bunch for me. Further, it has a lot of unique items that other similar outlets do not have, such as crunchy cauliflower (yup that’s how you can get your kids to eat cauliflower), fried mushroom steak or bites, kale-slaw (yup coleslaw made with kale) etc. Apart from burgers you can also order bowls with smashed crunchy chicken on rice (how cool is that!). In terms of drinks, I particularly like their Mount Fuji Apple drink, which I think compliments the fried food effortlessly.
If you are into deep fried food, I do recommend you to give Dr Krunch a try, even just for the curiosity of its menu. Apart from dine in and take away, Dr Krunch also does catering too, which could be great for kids party or even adult kids parties.
Dr Krunch locates right on 25 Belmore Road in Randwick, which is the Alison Road end of Belmore Road. You can also find out more about them via their website here.
