Stray Kids can bring the heat on stage — but can the band members handle it in their barbecue? In a new video posted by First We Feast Monday (Aug. 5), Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin and I.N find out.
To put their taste buds to the test, the eight K-pop idols met up with chef Esther Choi at a restaurant in New York City’s Koreatown to indulge in some BBQ. The boys started by declaring what levels of spice they can usually handle — Lee Know, they determined, has the highest tolerance while Bang Chan has the least — before diving into the spread, complete with a spicy sauce made by Choi. When they each tried her creation, most of the “Chk Chk Boom” musicians agreed it wasn’t too bad — until they realized that they’d spoken too soon, that is.
“Wait, the spice is hitting now,” said Han, coughing, while Bang Chan froze in shock.
Felix then showed off his skills with “aegyo” — which colloquially means “acting cute,” as the video explains — by speaking in a cartoonish, high-pitched voice through a mouthful of food. “Oh my, it’s so spicy!” he said sweetly before succumbing to a brief coughing fit from the spice. “It went down the wrong pipe.”
The boys went on to share some of their pre-concert rituals and pick out food terms to describe their group — “spicy-sweet,” according to Seungmin — before I.N mischievously loaded a lettuce wrap with a lot of spicy sauce for the cameraman to eat as Felix filmed.
The video comes just a couple days after Stray Kids headlined Lollapalooza in Chicago, marking the band’s biggest festival performance to date. In July, the octet dropped ATE, earning its fifth consecutive No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Watch Stray Kids tackle spicy Korean BBQ above.