Puradak Mamachi Garlic Chicken [Korean Food]

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Hello! Today’s new menu from Puradak is Maneul-mani Chicken, or Puradak Mamachi for short. When you think of Puradak chicken, what menu comes to mind besides its signature chili mayo? Surprisingly, they never had a soy-garlic chicken. Puradak, whose earlier garlic-focused items like Mad Garlic and Maburo never quite caught on, has now gone all in on garlic — living up to its English name, Garlic Bomb Chicken. At 22,900 won in-store, the minced-garlic visual, seemingly conscious of BHC’s Soy Garlic, is pretty overwhelming from the start. So let’s take a look at what it’s like.

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📋 At a Glance

Product: Puradak Mamachi (Maneul-mani Chicken; English name Garlic Bomb Chicken)
Store: Puradak (franchise new menu)
Price: 22,900 won in-store / 24,900 won delivery (boneless or wing combo +3,000 won)
Build: Oven-fried chicken + soy-garlic sauce + heaps of coarsely minced Korean garlic, with a chili-mayo sauce included
Verdict: ★3.5 — A distinctive, garlic-jokbal-style chicken where bold raw-garlic aroma meets a sweet sauce; just cloying toward the bottom, so a spicy dip on the side helps.

Puradak Mamachi: Price and Highlights

This is Puradak’s Mamachi, which has gone viral within days for a look that practically drowns the chicken in minced garlic. Puradak — famous for toppings that never lose to any other brand once they commit — seems to have prepared even this soy-garlic chicken pretty ambitiously. Their Mad Garlic packed in a fair amount of garlic chips too, as I recall. Haha.

Let’s check the price. In-store it’s 22,900 won / delivery is 24,900 won, and boneless or the wing combo add 3,000 won. Delivery apps are also handing out a 3,000-won discount coupon, so keep that in mind.

For reference, the English name for this menu is Garlic Bomb Chicken. The nuance is quite different from “Mamachi,” but it captures this menu’s identity best.

Since it’s Puradak, I splurged a bit and ordered boneless, and the default sauce that comes with it is a single chili mayo. For reference, Puradak uses domestic boneless chicken thigh; the portion feels a touch small, but it has none of the gamey smell you get with Brazilian boneless thigh, so I order it often.

What’s on the Puradak Mamachi

First, let’s take a quick look at the makeup. Per Puradak’s official description, they coat their signature oven-fried chicken in a soy-garlic sauce, then pile a heaping mound of coarsely minced domestic garlic on top.

The Mound of Minced Garlic and the Sweet Sauce

Unlike other menus that usually use garlic chips or flakes, this clearly piles on plenty of coarsely minced garlic. As striking as the look is, a sharp garlic smell hit hard even before I opened the lid, and it got even stronger once I did. It felt a bit like the moment you first pop open a tub of minced garlic.

Up close, the garlic is literally, well, “minced garlic.” There’s no roasting or sautéing step at all. It’s the kind of look that makes you wonder if this is really okay as-is. Chicken with garlic isn’t unfamiliar, but I’m not sure there’s ever been a case of raw minced garlic piled on like this. Sure, garlic jokbal (pork trotters) similarly heaps on minced garlic — but that’s jokbal, so it kind of works, you know? Haha.

Meanwhile, the sauce gives off a distinctly sweet aroma. It doesn’t seem like a 100% soy-sauce type; more like a mix of various sweet sauces with a bit of soy blended in. The exact taste I’ll only know after eating, of course. The sauce is quite generous, too — there’s a fair amount of it, so you can enjoy it a bit on the thick, saucy side.

How the Puradak Mamachi Tastes

So let’s dig right in. I picked a piece with a good bit of minced garlic on it and tasted it right away. Even before eating, the moment I brought it near my nose the garlic aroma really shot up. The first taste was, oh so predictably, an “Ah! Garlic!” moment.

Maybe because of the sauce, the sharp, pungent bite of garlic didn’t come up as much as I’d expected. Still, since they use raw garlic, there wasn’t the sweet aroma you get from roasted garlic. The sauce-and-garlic combo tasted familiar from somewhere, and it turned out to resemble the garlic jokbal from a bossam place. The sauce is a bit sweet, with that strong garlic aroma rising up — you know the taste, right?

That said, the slightly sweet taste is limited to the pieces on top; the lower you go, the less garlic there is and the more the chicken sits soaked in sauce, so the sweet sauce aroma outweighs the garlic. Before eating, it’s a good idea to mix it once so the garlic is spread evenly, and to keep the chicken from sitting in the sauce too long.

Pairing with Chili Mayo and a Spicy Dip

As I ate, it started to feel a bit cloying, so I dipped a piece into the included chili mayo. Even that alone has a subtle heat that helped things along a little. It’s not strictly necessary, but since the sauce itself is quite sweet, having a slightly spicy sauce on hand beyond the default one would probably help a lot. I can’t promise any one sauce pairs 100%, but you’ll definitely want something spicy — about as spicy as when you crave a cheongyang pepper while eating garlic jokbal.

Overall, this menu was a fairly distinctive marriage of two things: a sweet sauce and the deep garlic aroma rising from the generous minced garlic. Because the sauce pools and grows sweeter the lower you go, and the garlic sits mostly on top, it can get a touch cloying toward the end — but as I mentioned, it’s manageable enough if you prep ahead or have one more dipping sauce ready.

Final Verdict

If you don’t mind garlic aroma, it’s worth trying at least once. Afterward, the garlic scent lingers on your breath for quite a while. Haha. It seems like it could be a fresh option for those who find the usual spicy chicken or rich cheese chicken too much. For readers outside Korea, picture that heap-of-raw-garlic style you see on Korean garlic jokbal, applied to fried chicken.

For more on the launch of Puradak Mamachi — oven-fried chicken finished with a special garlic sauce and a mound of domestic minced garlic — you can check the (Korean source) Etnews report on the Puradak Mamachi launch.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How much is the Puradak Mamachi?

It’s 22,900 won in-store and 24,900 won for delivery. Boneless or the wing combo add 3,000 won, and delivery apps often offer a 3,000-won discount coupon.

Q. What exactly is the Mamachi?

It’s short for “Maneul-mani Chicken,” with the English name Garlic Bomb Chicken. It’s a garlic-focused new menu that coats oven-fried chicken in a soy-garlic sauce and piles on a mound of coarsely minced domestic garlic.

Q. How does the Mamachi taste?

The deep aroma of raw garlic marries a sweet special sauce for a distinctive taste, much like the garlic jokbal from a bossam place. Just note that the sauce pools and grows sweeter toward the bottom, so mixing it well and adding a spicy sauce makes it much better.

Q. Would you recommend it?

If garlic aroma doesn’t bother you, yes. The garlic lingers on your breath for a while afterward, but for anyone who finds the usual spicy or rich cheese chicken too much, it’s a genuinely fresh alternative.

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