New Popeyes K-POPeyes Chicken Wings: Crunchy with Great Sauce But Not Memorable

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but after the Crispy Rendang Chicken, Popeyes wanted to keep the ball rolling.

It was a bit of a hit in Singapore, after all. Some people ate it as a joke, some ate to try it out. We ate it because our fat boss left his credit card on his desk.

Whatever the reason, people ended up really digging it!

And so the Popeyes team came together one day and thought…hmm, what else do Singaporeans really love?

K-POP!

So what did they do? Come up with a new seasonal menu item called K-POPeyes Chicken, obviously!

And what did we do? Use the boss’s card to buy it lorh!

Hahahahaha, sorry boss.

(We obviously made up the story about Popeyes team coming together, and also the credit card story, lest someone decided to call the police on us)

Anyway, when it came, we were super duper excited.

We opened the box and…idk, I felt a bit disappointed?

It was kinda bleak looking with the darkness of the sauce making it look like some emo chicken.

It looked really crispy though, so plus points for that. My colleague did comment saying it looked very dry.

And I agree.

But it is quite deceptive cuz all the sauce collected at the bottom of the box. So if you feel like the chicken is too dry, not to worry. You can dip the chicken in that sauce that’s collected to make it not-so-dry.

It smells very strongly of soy sauce, and I couldn’t really get the hints of garlic and sesame unless you put your nose very very very close to the chicken.

Please don’t do that in public though…people might think you’re being weird.

Moving on to the taste.

Biting into the chicken, it’s really, really crunchy: Definitely passes the fried chicken crunch test. And this is how it held up over delivery! Imagine getting it fresh at Popeyes outlets.

The chicken itself tastes like regular crunchy fried Popeyes chicken, so what really sets it apart is the sauce.

The sauce is spicy and sweet at the same time, quite the iconic flavour profile for Korean food.

And the chicken is really juicy, so that was really good.

But to be honest, when I think of K-Pop, I think of something really over-the-top, really exceptional. Show-stopping even.

The Popeyes website even describes this dish as “sweet crispy wings topped with crunchy garlic bits and white sesame seeds – soy yummy, it’s eye-popping!”

So it really sounds like it’s going to be over-the-top fantastic right? Wrong.

The garlic bits didn’t really add to the flavour profile – I couldn’t taste notes of garlic in this chicken. I think either the sauce was too sweet for that, or maybe they didn’t add enough garlic.

And as a whole, the taste of the K-POPeyes chicken was unfortunately quite underwhelming. Maybe I built it up too much in my head? But even for Korean-style fried chicken, other korean chicken places do it better.

The chicken wasn’t show-stopping or glamorous-looking or exceptional. It just tastes like regular fried chicken. With a spicy-sweet sauce.

Is this worth trying? Sure thing, especially if you like Korean fried chicken.

Are you going to fall in love with it? Probably not.

So should it stay around? Maybe not.

I can’t wait to see what Popeyes does next though. Meanwhile, maybe they should bring round that Crispy Rendang Chicken again.

Not only did that give me quite the chuckle, I also thought it tasted pretty darn great.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

However, you’re a Popeyes fan and love Korean fried chicken, it might be a 3.5 out of 5 stars. Well, to each his / her own!