San Francisco’s coolest block is the restaurant-packed stretch of Mission Street between Valencia and 29th streets on the Mission-Bernal border. And while it hasn’t gotten much attention apart from some serious acclaim on TikTok, the most decadent brunch dish in the city is the "K-Bomb" fried chicken Benedict at Four Chairs, an underacknowledged 2-year-old Korean restaurant on that very block that serves breakfast and brunch almost exclusively.
The $20 K-Bomb isn’t decadent because it’s cartoonishly oversize. (It isn’t.) It’s decadent because Korean fried chicken Benedict with chipotle hollandaise served on a thick slice of ciabatta instead of a sad little English muffin is a really great idea.
At first glance, it seems logical enough. After all, fried chicken Benedict is only one notch up the indulgence scale from chicken-and-waffles, the soul food staple that long ago made the leap to all-around brunch workhorse. There’s a local Asian-fusion precedent for this, too: People can’t get enough of the fried chicken Benedict at Lapisara Eatery, a Thai restaurant in Lower Nob Hill. Yelpers ranked it the best brunch spot in California in 2022.
But here’s the rub: None of those rivals are Korean fried chicken Benedict, thick with sauce and a kiss of heat. With the K-Bomb, you have two choices for dipping your home fries—not merely the yolk from the poached eggs. Anyone looking for an alternative to fried chicken has an equally inventive option in the chipotle chorizo Benedict. Okonomiyaki fries, dusted with bonito flakes, take the savory Japanese pancake and give it the poutine treatment. This is officially an Asian-Mexican-American brunch experience.
An exquisitely presented stack of three pancakes with effortlessly whipped mascarpone between them is a great quasi-dessert, something that will get everyone at the table to reflexively grab their fork. It’s arguably a little goofy to have a section on the beverage menu called “Instagrammable Drinks,” but the mango matcha latte is a tricolor star at a very reasonable $7. For years, Kitchen Story has been the Asian-centric brunch restaurant with San Francisco’s longest wait time, but maybe not for long.
📍 3282 Mission St., SF