Fried Chicken News

Spicy Korean fried chicken chain to open its first location in Fort Worth

Mmmm spicy.

Bonchon Chicken

An international fried chicken chain is coming to Fort Worth: Bonchon, the brand known for its unique and spicy Korean-style fried chicken, is opening its first Tarrant County location in southwest Fort Worth, off the frontage road of Chisholm Trail Parkway.

According to a company spokesman, the restaurant is a new build, currently under construction at 9652 Ten Gallon Dr., in a shopping center at McPherson Boulevard that is also, deliciously, home to a Chick Fil-A. Chicken face-off!

Their hoped-for opening date is August.

When that opening date arrives, it will be only the fourth Bonchon in Dallas-Fort Worth; there are currently locations in The Colony and Addison, but in addition to Fort Worth, there's another one under construction in Frisco, which is scheduled to open in May.

Bonchon's chicken is notable for two reasons:

It's double-fried, which gives the crust a satisfyingly chew
It has a unique red sauce that's garlicky, sweet, and spicy

The menu includes wings, drumettes, and boneless strips. There are also Korean tacos, which you can get with chicken or with bulgogi/marinated beef, plus fried rice, fries, coleslaw, and a kimchi coleslaw.

Other delectable dishes include pork buns, pot stickers, popcorn shrimp, and a fun bonchon wrap with lettuce, avocado, and onion in ranch dressing in a flour tortilla with choice of chicken or bulgogi.

Bonchon was founded in South Korea in 2002, then came to the U.S. in 2006. It was still only available in New York when it first entered the DFW market in 2013 and was met with such frenzied crowds that it had to shut down temporarily to recover.

The company has since relocated its U.S. headquarters to Dallas, and is run by veteran Dallas restaurateur Flynn Dekker, former marketing chief for Wingstop, who was named Bonchon's CEO in 2019.

Simultaneous to the new HQ in Dallas, Bonchon launched a fast-casual model and streamlined menu to help support their online ordering operation, which currently accounts for more than 50 percent of business.

Unfortunately, the menu streamlining resulted in the demise of some dishes including their fried tofu, which earned the top spot on this Best Tofu roundup back in 2014. It was everything you want in a fried tofu, with cubes that were battered, then fried, with a spicy-crunchy crust and soft, silken interior.

Bonchon, please bring back the tofu.

There are more than 100 locations in the United States and 250 restaurants throughout Asia and the Middle East.

openings

Chef News

Fort Worth's Will Rogers Memorial Center welcomes bright new chef

FortWorthtx.gov

Will Rogers Memorial Center

There's a new chef in town: Waylon Cornelius, named executive chef of catering and concessions for Craft Culinary Concepts, the food and beverage provider at Will Rogers Memorial Center.

Will Rogers Memorial Center is the 120-acre entertainment complex anchoring Fort Worth’s Cultural District, owned and operated by the City of Fort Worth. Cornelius will oversee menus for trade shows and other events at the center which bring in more than 2 million visitors a year.

Craft Culinary Concepts is headquartered in Glendale, Arizona, and manages food and beverage programs for entertainment, sports and cultural facilities.

Chef Waylon Corneliusfortworthtx.gov

According to a release, Cornelius joined the team this summer and is already shifting the expectations of guests from a typical “BBQ and beans” menu to a bill of fare satisfying every kind of palate.

“We always have fajitas ready to go, but we also make a beautiful Beef Wellington or baked salmon with a pink salt crust,” Cornelius says in a statement.

For consumer trade shows, Craft and its partners Caribou and Taco Heads offer more choices for the thousands of guests who attend events at WRMC annually.

“Some of our equestrian guests are away from home and here for several days, and they need more than popcorn and hot dogs,” Cornelius says. “Our concessions offer biscuits and gravy, burritos made in-house, strawberry salad, fruit and yogurt cups.”

A native of Mansfield, Cornelius grew up helping in a farm-to-table kitchen. He was raised on a farm with his mother, grandmother, and grandfather -- a Vietnam veteran who enjoyed vegetable gardens and raising hogs and chickens. He studied computer science after high school and holds an associate's degree in Cultural Resource Management and Policy Analysis from Tarrant County College.

He's a 2003 graduate of AIMS Academy of Culinary Arts in Dallas where he was mentored by a number of great chefs. While training as assistant executive sous chef at the AAA four-diamond Grand Hyatt DFW, he worked with Executive Chef Sutti Sripolpa, chef Eric Dreyer (who went on to be Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef), and Chef Jean-Claude Plihon, under whom he honed his French cooking skills.

As executive sous chef at the opening of Perry’s Steakhouse and Grille in Southlake, Cornelius gained expertise with volume. While at HG Sply Co., he learned about gluten-free items and other food allergies.

HG Sply is also where he crossed paths with Chef James R. Schell III, Craft’s general manager at WRMC, who recruited Cornelius to the complex.

"James said he needed someone who can hit moving targets, push the culinary team to be more avant-garde and use locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, so here I am," Cornelius says. "Culinary is a small world."

“I want people to say, ‘When we were in Fort Worth, you won’t believe what we got at Will Rogers!’” Schell says. “Even the celebrities who perform [in the auditorium] are surprised. When Chicago played here recently and we served dinner backstage, they said they felt treated like the Rolling Stones.”

chefs