ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

A new rival to the McDonald’s Big Mac and KFC bucket meal is about to enter London’s fast-food market - fried chicken and spaghetti.

Jollibee is Asia’s biggest home grown fast food chain and opens its first UK branch in a former Wagamama outlet in Earls Court on October 20.

The chain, which started as an ice cream parlour in Manila in 1975, is known for its fried chicken with spaghetti signature meal.

A glitzy social media campaign on Facebook and Instagram featuring the brand’s trademark “jolly” red bee mascot and aimed primarily at London’s estimated 200,000 strong Filipino community launches tomorrow.

It will be only the second Jollibee branch in Europe following a launch in Milan in March when huge queues built up from the early hours of the opening day.

Jollibee Foods Corporation chief executive Ernesto Tanmantiong told the Standard: ”We aim to become one of the top five restaurant companies in the world. Opening our first store in the United Kingdom brings us one step closer to realising this vision.”

The menu features an eclectic mix of US and Asian influenced dishes including fried chicken with spaghetti covered in a red sauce loaded with slices of hotdog sausage and ground beef; fried chicken with a beef patty mushroom gravy and rice; and corned beef, garlic rice and fried egg. Sides include mashed potato and gravy and creamy macaroni soup.

Prices have not yet been revealed but are expected to be in line with those in US branches where chicken with rice costs $5.89 (£4.43) and chicken with spaghetti is $6.29 (£4.73)

The trademark fried chicken, known as Chickenjoy, is said to be crunchier and spicier than conventional US influenced versions.

Its food has been praised by the late TV chef Anthony Bourdain, who described Jollibee’s spaghetti with hotdogs “deranged but strangely alluring” when he tried the dish while filming in Manila.

The brand has a devoted and huge following in the Philippines, one of the few major markets in the world where the local fast food operator is bigger than McDonald’s.

Earls Court was chosen for the first UK site as it has historically been home to London’s biggest Filipino community.

The opening is seen as so culturally significant for the Filipino community that it is expected to be attended by the Philippines ambassador.

Further stores are expected to be opened around London before further branches outside the capital.

There are around 1300 Jollibee restaurants globally roughly half in the Philippines and half abroad,