The Dish

WINNER, WINNER

we’re Living in A gOLden Age Of gOLden chicken. After years in the hinterland, not a week goes by anymore that a new spot doesn’t pop up, paint still drying on the sign, to offer some variation of dredged, breaded and lovingly deep-fried poultry. There’s Fighter Chicken and Rib & Chicken in Marpole, Chirpyhut in the Cambie Village, and C&T on Burrard, with Le Coq Frit just around the corner on Broadway and Donky a few blocks east— and that’s just the tip of the drumstick. But it wasn’t always biscuit wheels on a gravy train bound for Nashville in July. Before this current onslaught, before the quantum shift of Downlow or the pioneering of Juke, there was Zabu, one of those oddball spots on lower Robson with a weird font and worse decor—but they had vision. They brought the Korean Fried Chicken (KFC) phenomenon to town, dressed with either the original light soy, the trendsetting Zabu hot or one of their eccentric variations: the puffed rice of Sal Sal chicken or the chili garlic of Yang Nyum. And, notwithstanding the competition they face from literally every quadrant of the city, the place still nails it night in, night out (there’s never been any lunch service here) like the OG of KFC. Zabu Chicken, 1635 Robson, zabuchicken.com

by Neal McLennan

DRINK THIS

DEVINE

ANCIENT GRAINS, $72 What is an “alt whisky”? Well, in some ways it’s the most local way to craft spirits: it eschews the strict guidelines from the old world (“Scotch whisky shall...”) and instead lets a curious distiller pick and choose their grains and techniques and improvise. In this bottle’s case, it means there’s barley, spelt and then some real esoteric grains, like emmer, khorasan and einkorn. The result is like no whisky you’ve ever had—and that’s the point. This isn’t some single-malt wannabe, it is its fully formed own thing. I was on the blind tasting panel that awarded this whisky gold medals in both 2020 and 2021—medals it earned for its lively cereal notes and uncommon civility given its young age. It tastes just like... itself.