Frying Pan Downtown’s beloved fried chicken spot has a new location by English Bay. Well known for their Nashville style sandwiches and Korean fried chicken hybrid, this is a welcomed addition to the neighbourhood.
The new restaurant and its branding are designed to get you reminiscent of old school diners with its vintage colour scheme and retro style cartooning. Their actual frying pan logo has come alive, although they don’t actually use a frying pan to make their thick stuffed chicken sandwiches.
I was invited to this location the weekend before their official opening on Tuesday, September 20th, 2022. At the time the exterior of the restaurant still had much work to be done. The awning remained bare and only the one front window had their new logo marking it. So don’t walk on by, missing it.
Below is a snippet of their menu with more to come. It has its own offerings outside of their original food truck and Gastown location. But you can still get their most popular Hot chicken sandwich with juicy white breast chicken here.
What is new is their classic crunch sandwich made with chicken thigh instead of the breast meat. This is the first time they have done a classic, perfect for those like me, who prefer dark meat to white. Worth mentioning is that using the thigh means this is a more compact handheld, for those looking for a more smaller meal.
Although if you want the dark meat, but the same girth of their popular hot chicken sandwiches that you have come to know and love, look to the Classic double crunch sandwich available in an accommodating selection of heat ranges from zero hot, mild hot, medium hot, extra hot, and 911. Two pieces of battered and crispy fried chicken thigh, where the heat determines the zest and flavour intensity. With medium hot this was classic combo with tangy mayo and freshness from iceberg lettuce and pickled cucumber. This is one of those burgers you have to unhinge your jaw for, and I loved doing so.
And all new is their Pa dak sandwich: double fried chicken with a heaping helping of thinly sliced green onion/scallion slaw. Nothing best epitomes their Nashville X Korea chicken sandwich hybrid concept. Perfectly juicy and crispy chicken with the right amount of fresh greens to balance out all the deep fry between 2 buttery soft buns. I highly recommend this for a fantastic twist on everyone’s favourite chicken sando.
And another one that you should not miss is their spicy fried cheese sandwich. This was once just a secret menu item, when their Frying Pan Foodtruck would post up at Farmer’s Market. It is now a regular menu item thanks to its overwhelming positive response. A fan favourite and now my favourite take on grilled cheese to date. Plenty of mozzarella at the centre for a stringy cheese pull, provided that you eat it right away: warm. The extra kicker is the sprinkling of hot dust surrounding the sandwich, much like how they would bread their fried chicken.
And non-meat eaters worry not, they have a tasty vegetarian option as well. Not imitation meat or beyond anything. This is a sandwich designed with vegetables at the forefront. A vegetable patty that eats like a croquette dressed with a garlic soy mustard marinade, finished with shredded lettuce for crispiness and pickled cucumber for tang. A sandwich built to be a vegetable sandwich, not a substitution for meat.
For drinks they have flavoured lemonade and pop. I recommend the former as the perfect citrus refresher to accompany all the heavier fried foods.
And what is a burger without fries? The best kind has to be the waffle for surface area and textural crunch. Served with two mayo-based dips and packets of ketchup for options.
In conclusion, another location for the fried chicken that you already know and love.
Frying Pan Fried Chicken
1101 Denman St, Vancouver, BC
thefryingpan604.com
