What’s up with the Indonesian FC’s

I thought in South East Asia, fried chicken is really big in the Philippines, I was wrong, Indonesia, specifically Bali has a bigger fried chicken scene. In Philippines, most of the fast food restaurants even the big American brands serve Fried Chicken, and I thought out of all South East Asian countries’ Filipinos have the most love for these fried chooks until I visited Bali. In Bali it is similar, most fast food restaurants serve them but what they do have that Philippines don’t are the “FC” joints, branded KFC rip-offs. JFC, DFC, CFC, TFC, C’Best FC, SFC, BFC, MFC, ACK, basically all the letter of the Alphabet “FC’s” they have it and all of them serve the same thing (fried chicken) and branded with the famous “FC” red colour with a splash of yellow.

As you use the streets of Bali, these Fried Chicken joints are everywhere, even in the remote parts of Bali but mind you there are also KFC’s in most major locations. So what’s with this “FC’s” all about? Does it really compare with the original KFC? I know there are many to choose from, we did not try them all, we gave several ones a try. So which is better let’s find out.

We will be rating the chicken by its Taste, Crispiness, Greasiness, Location and Price Point let’s start.

Let’s start with the tastiest one DFC or Delicious Fried Chicken, breading definitely packs a lot of flavour, you can taste its spices, it was not to greasy, definitely very crispy in fact the crispiest of the bunch. This is also the second most popular brand based on my observation. The name speaks for itself, it is definitely delicious.

Next up is JFC or Jaya Fried Chicken, I think this is the biggest brand out of everyone, biggest brand meaning there are lots of establishments and in most popular places it has the most queue. Taste is OK, less tasty than DFC, it was greasy and the batter is floury, thicker coating and not that crispy. On the place we tried the staff were very friendly and funny, the chicken was cooed on demand as well so you know its freshly made.

Then this ACK, I don’t know what the name stands for but it sounds like a chicken sound when they scream 🙂 Competing with DCF in terms of popularity, I think it either runs second or third out of all the FC’s apart from KFC of course. Chicken was the largest of the bunch, it is a crispy as DFC. Flavour is OK and it was moist, one thing to note here is that their sauce (sambal) is the best of the bunch.

For our final FC it’s this CFC or California Fried Chicken, the most expensive of the bunch maybe because it was in Galleria Mall. It was the less tasty of the bunch but it was the cleanest premises.

Prices are very cheap apart from CFC (but it is still cheap compared to Western Standards), Fried Chicken is fried chicken, they tasted nearly similar with each other, and the difference is only when you start to dissect the elements. All meals are served with rice (like what you see in Philippines) and a drink where the standard is iced tea. Is it similar as KFC? Well I will let you decide on it when you try them.