Lotteria Fries Review: Does the King of Korean Fast-Food Get It Right?

We continue our travels in South Korea and one of the primary destinations for us fries lovers has to be Lotteria. Lotteria is a prime example of how western fast-food can be blended with local taste and cuisine. Founded in 1972 by the South Korean conglomerate - Lotte, they say Lotteria is vastly popular in Korea and Japan. You cannot taste Lotteria fries outside of Korea and Japan, so naturally, this was a moment that we've been counting days for.

Will we find fries that are just as good as the big brands and chains? Will we discover fries that are blended with local cuisine? (ie. kimchi fries?) So many questions and we just had to find out. Here's our Lotteria fries review.

Lotteria at the Lotte World Mall in Seoul, South Korea.

Texture (4/10)

The fries had some crisp but no cruchiness whatsoever, and the insides are a soft mush, almost like mud. Due to the thickness, some parts of the stick was literally a shell without any innards, akin to a deflated toothpaste tube. The only redeeming attribute is again is the slight crispiness on the exterior of the fry, but too inconsistent to drive delight. Thus for texture, we cannot rate this high as we felt the fries were undercooked and imbalanced.

Decent crisp but weak innards.

Flavor (3/10)

It was very disappointing to find out that these fries have no flavor at all - while the rest of Korean cuisine has a lot of character. You cannot taste the slightest bit of salt or any seasoning on this fries. Granted, there was a "Seasoned Fry" as a separate menu item, which we have tried as well and will follow up with a review, they at least need to make an effort on the regular.

Shape (4/10)

Just like the McDonald's Korea fries, we have another case of what we called "open-ended" fries. The fries have no tips and the mush on the inside tends to squeeze out if you squish the fries. Also, these fries are so short. Half of the contents in the bag are just fragments of a real fry, as if those in the kitchne cut off the tips of the fries and just tossed them in the carton. We don't recall seeing a single stick that is over 3 inches long. The sticks are stright and uniform, and most of them don't flop around in your hand when you take a bite.

The sticks are in general "short" and there are plenty of these small broken pieces.

Presentation (4/10)

This is literally the white version of the McDonald's carton. It does seem that Lotteria has spent effort putting designs and patterns on the carton, which we rarely see in fries containers as they are typically one solid color. The fries (although short) are packed in well and it does present itself well. The only call out here is that Lotteria's supposedly Large Size carton is definitely equivalent or smaller than the regular version at McDonald's. I'm not sure why the portion is so small, considering that their burgers seem to be on the same scale.

Very similar to McDonald's but their Large carton was perhaps the same as McDonald's regular.

Experience (2/10)

Since the fires are tasteless, there is not much to comment about how they went along with the remaining sandwiches and burgers. Perhaps it was always meant to complement the meal by filling your stomach up, but then even so, the portions are tiny. The fries were also at an average price compared to many other fast-food restaurants so really, nothing stands out. We may be a bit harsh here but given we wanted to get a Korean fast-food fries experience, Lotteria absolutely disappointed us in many ways.

Texture	4
Flavor	3
Shape	4
Presentation	4
Experience	2
Overall	3.4 / 10

Conclusion

Overally, Lotteria has been a big disappointment. The texture was barely passable, no seasoning or memorable flavor, and the innards of the fries were soft mush with often deflated leakage common. Each stick was short and tiny, while the overall package itself was a shrunk version of the mainstream competition.

We really think Lotteria has an opportunity here and are curious why they have not capitalized on being more creative. They must understand that fries are not something to overlook, but can be a wonderful flagship and a differentiatior. All we saw was a textbook fries "half baked".