Korean Fried Chicken: BBQ Chicken on Wilshire and Vermont

BBQ Chicken is a chain which recently opened a Koreatown location at 7th and Vermont. Contrary to what you may assume from the name, Korean BBQ doesn't serve much in the way of barbecue. In fact, according to their menu, the B-B-Q in BBQ Chicken stands for "Best of the Best Quality."

Instead, this is another of the Korean fried chicken joints, the major selling point of which seems to be that the chicken is fried in olive oil. I ordered a number of dishes to check it out.

The olive oil fried chicken, known as Olive Original Chicken, was very nice. The batter was crisp and light with a very mild seasoning. Generally, I haven't cared for the non-seasoned fried chicken at the various Korean chicken shops. Without the marinade, they tend to be bland, but I really liked this one which tasted fresh and had nice flavor from the olive oil.

The Teri-Q is more similar to the soy-garlic standards at places like KyoChon and BonChon, but the version at BBQ Chicken was greasy, overcooked and not as intensely flavorful as its competitors' chickens.

As with most of the Korean chicken joints, the further you move from standard fried chicken offerings, the more questionable the dish. The "seasoned chicken" at BBQ consists of fried chicken nuggets coated with a dreadful sauce tasting of sweetened ketchup, and the marinated barbecue chicken was a rubbery airplane-like dish (from the days when the actually served food on planes, that is).

The standout at BBQ Chicken is definitely the Olive Chicken; I can't imagine going back for anything else.

BBQ Chicken
698 S. Vermont Ave, #101 (SE corner)
Los Angeles, CA 90005
(213) 739-1047

(Additional LA area locations in Fullerton and Irvine.)

KFC #3: Chicken Day

This is the third in our series of Korean Fried Chicken (KFC) Joints. Chicken Day is a new fried chicken outlet at the corner of Third and Western (right next to Choice Meats) with another shop in either La Crescenta or La Canada (they seem to use the names interchangeably).

If you've read the first two parts of our series, you know the drill: whole chicken cut in chunks with either a soy/garlic sauce or a hot sauce, sometimes with a no-sauce option, served with a side of pickeld radishes.

Unfortunately, Chicken Day doesn't measure up to KyoChon or BonChon. The chicken had a thicker batter and had more the taste of traditional fast food fried chicken (i.e. the other KFC). The Teriyaki sauce chicken was definitely the best of the three flavors, but it had a strange sort of breading on it and the flavor was not very intense. The spicy sauce was a thick, sticky goo that seemed to mostly be composed of ketchup...it left a bad taste in my mouth.

I didn't find much to like about Chicken Day. Lucky for us, it's only one of many neighborhood chicken choices.

Chicken Day
301 S. Western Ave., #107 (Corner of Third Street)
Los Angeles, CA
(213) 387-9933

More KFC: BonChon Chicken

We continue our exploration of the Korean Fried Chicken phenomenon with the newly opened BonChon Chicken on Sixth Street and Catalina in Koreatown. BonChon is of the same genre as the recently reviewed KyoChon Chicken, offering fried chicken in regular and spicy sauces.

BonChon's two flavor choices are soy garlic and hot. The soy garlic is mildly garlicky but with nice flavor. The hot is quite spicy without the sweetness of KyoChon's. You can order the fried chicken without sauce, but it is fairly bland. As with KyoChon, the chicken is served with pickled radishes.

So what to make of the KyoChon/BonChon rivalry? Overall, I preferred KyoChon's excellent garlic chicken to BonChon's, but I liked BonChon's hot chicken better.

The real difference between the two, though, is revealed on their websites. Whereas KyoChon is a "synonym flashed upon with taste," BonChon characterizes its product as "tasteful and nutritiously enriched." So, if you prefer a synonymous flash, head to KyoChon, but if nutritional enrichment is your thing, you should be eating at BonChon.


BonChon Chicken
3407 W. 6th Street (at Catalina)
Los Angeles, CA 90020
(213) 487-7878

KFC: Korean Fried Chicken

My home neighborhood of Koreatown goes through very noticeable food trends. A few years ago it was boba tea. A boba shop opened up on every corner and every place in town, except maybe Carl's Jr., started serving boba. Then, last year, it was the tart yogurt craze started by Pinkberry. All those boba places in local stripmalls were replaced by yogurt shops offering tart yogurt with a variety of toppings.

This year, it's fried chicken. The craze began with KyoChon, a Korean mega-chain, which opened a branch on Sixth Street. Now it seems that Korean fried chicken joints are popping up all over. These places serve large orders of chicken fried to order (which usually means a hefty wait). I was never that into boba or tart yogurt, but fried chicken is a craze I can really dig into, so over the next few months, I'll be sampling some of the local wares.

I decided to start at the beginning so I headed over to KyoChon, and I'm so happy I did. This is some of, if not the best fried chicken I've ever had. The order of choice is a whole chicken chopped in smallish pieces and fried. The pieces are perfectly fried; they have a firm, crisp crust, not a batter, and the meat is moist and juicy. The original recipe has a wonderful garlicky, salty taste and there is a minimum of fat. The small pieces increase the fried surface area, so you don't end up with big pieces (say breasts) which have a low proportion of fried surface to meat. This stuff is heavily addictive. I challenge anyone not to finish a whole box, large though it is.

We also ordered a side of hot wings. These were good as well, both sweet and spicy, and again, perfectly fried, but they paled in comparison to the amazing original recipe.

There's clearly a reason this chain has done so well in Korea, and I came away wanting to know more about it, so I took a look at their website. It was filled with helpful information about their "special taste culture filling," and proudly declares that KyoChon is a "synonym flashed upon with taste." I couldn't have said it better myself.

KyoChon
3833 W. 6th Street
Los Angeles, CA
(213) 739-9292

2515 Torrance Blvd.
Torrance, CA
(310) 320-9299