KFC Goes East and Localizes
by Kei Taichi
T
oday, in China, people can find a plethora of international fast food restaurants to eat at. A few of these
choices include McDonalds, Subway, Carl’s Jr. and Taco Bell… The most common of the fast food chains
in China, however, is indisputably KFC. As you step in to the Colonel’s home, you smell chicken - but when
you take a closer look at the food, you notice there is rice. Understandably you are confused, but don’t im-
mediately assume you’ve gone mad.
Let me explain how KFC is localized here in China.
Let’s look at the menu. In the standard US version of KFC, we’ve got all the items we are used to: chicken
buckets (With options for extra crispy and grilled chicken), sandwiches (Four main different types) like the
Crispy Colonel sandwich, the Smokey Mountain BBQ sandwich, the Nashville Hot sandwich, and of course
the Georgia Gold sandwich… And who can forget sides like the famous mashed potatoes with gravy?
Can I get some biscuits, too? Apparently, not in China...
In China, where the dishes are localized to fit the desire of the local people, most of the menu items from the
US are either substituted or completely taken out. For example, all the sandwiches from the US menu are
gone except for the Crispy Colonel sandwich.
Here, there are substitutes, including The Zinger, which has everything a normal chicken sandwich would
have, except this one has an exotic yellow sauce (made from mysterious ingredients). I found another sand-
wich that has an extremely peculiar name; it’s called the Flava Roast Chicken Burger with Ham. That name
just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it? I have no idea what “Flava” means in this context, but it’s surely to die for.
There are also other dishes that are made especially for Chinese taste buds like the rice with mushroom
bowl. It’s literally mushrooms on rice with a “special gravy sauce.” The website claims the dish to be a “Sig-
nature of KFC,” but I don’t remember there being rice in my gravy in the US.
Despite some culinary disasters, I have found my new favorite item at KFC in China. “Chicken a la King Rice.”