Viewers horrified after travel blogger Johnny Kyunghwo eats raw chicken dish

A food and travel blogger has filmed the moment he tried a dish of raw chicken for the first time at a restaurant – shocking social media users from across the world.

British-Korean man Johnny Kyunghwo was on a food tour in Haenam, South Korea when he decided to try the unusual dish.

In a video, Mr Kyunghwo explained that the tour, led by fellow content creator Austin Givens of the YouTube channel Eat What is Given, went to a restaurant that specialised in locally raised free range chicken.

It served a dish called “chicken sashimi,” which he said was “essentially raw chicken”.

“I’d never tried completely raw chicken but you know what, I’ll try anything once and let me tell you it was better than I expected,” he said.

He added that it actually didn’t taste like chicken at all.

“The meat didn’t have much flavour so most of the taste came from the sesame oil and seeds the raw chicken was coated in, but the texture was almost like raw fish. Not slimy at all. It was firm but still very easy to chew into,” he said in his review.

“I didn’t think I would like it that much but I ended up eating quite a few bites of it including a Korean style raw chicken lettuce wrap. I give it an eight out of 10. Highly recommend.”

In a vlog on YouTube, Mr Kyunghwo said he was fully aware of the dangers of eating raw chicken but put his trust in the popular restaurant.

However, Lydia Buchtmann from the Australian Food Safety Information Council told news.com.au it was not safe to eat raw chicken anywhere.

“Chicken is a safe and convenient food if it is cooked to 75 degrees Celsius [167 degrees Fahrenheit] in the thickest part,” she said. “But it is a major source of food poisoning if eaten raw or undercooked whether that is here or overseas.

“We’ve noticed a trend in a small number (under 2 per cent) Australians saying they eat raw or minimally cooked meat and poultry which is very risky.”

Mr Kyunghwo, who has 1.1 million followers on TikTok and 605,000 subscribers on YouTube, left viewers in shock.

“Please talk about how this didn’t kill you. Many of us simply cannot comprehend raw chicken,” one person wrote.

“I can’t even comprehend the texture of raw chicken. That’s what would throw me off,” said another.

“Did the salmonella force you to make this video,” a third joked.

One person claimed they would have a panic attack even going near the plate, while another said just watching the video made them feel ill.

Mr Kyunghwo had to assure people in the comments on his TikTok he was in fact OK after eating the chicken sashimi.

“Guys, I ate this last week and I’m still alive,” he wrote.

Mr Kyunghwo has a British father and Korean mother, and while he was born in London, he grew up between the two countries.

He even worked as barista in Australia for a year after finishing high school.

Chicken sashimi is eaten in Korea and Japan, where it is known as torisashi. It can also sometimes be found in Japanese restaurants outside Japan.

Brisbane-based chef Eugene Lee previously told SBS Food there was “an art to preparing raw chicken”, which meant chicken sashimi was done in a precise way.

“Most of the meat actually comes from the most inner part of the chicken breast, nearest to the soft bone. That is the safest part and is less likely to be infested with microbes,” he said.

He said in his experience overseas the chicken was slaughtered on farm, delivered to the restaurant within hours and butchered by the chef at the restaurant using equipment only for that purpose.

“It shouldn’t be butchered [on the farm] because if the butcher starts preparing it then you won’t know if the chicken feet has come into contact with the chicken breast,” he told the outlet. “We want to get the chicken whole so that the inner breast is still intact.”

Mr Kyunghwo said all the chicken dishes they ate at the restaurant, both raw and cooked, were from the one chicken.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand recommends cooking all poultry to at least 167 degrees Fahrenheit in the center.