KyoChon: Incredibly Tasty Chicken

Famous neighbours in a famous neighbourhood, that sums up Beverly Hills from where I stood. It is an almost ethereal drive to Kyochon from the top of the hill east through Beverly Hills to Korea Town, and a good 30 minutes if you are lucky. Like any Beverly Hills resident, my friend drove us down there in his brand new eco-friendly black Prius, with tinted windows, and in LA fashion, there was valet parking. Inside Kyochon, it didn’t seem any different to any Californian fast food joint, with big windows, cheapo plastic tables and TV screens showing menus that hung from the ceilings above the servers heads. Except the little buttons on each table: Press it, and your server appeared.

There were two marinades to chose from for their wings, Garlic Soy Sauce and Sweet Hot Sauce. The former, a savoury “safe” option, they said contained no less than 23 ingredients. Being twice fried, the skin ends up super thin and like a crispy crust. This wasn’t like American style fried chicken, there was no thick batter here, and the meat inside was perhaps a fraction drier because most of the fat had been rendered off. With everything cooked to order (they call themselves “slow food” rather than “fast food”). We ended up ordering a mountain of medium and hot sweet hot sauce wings, and the hot wings were only slightly sweet but with intense fiery afterburn that had my lips on fire for at least 5 minutes after consumption. Accompanying the mountain of wings we had ordered were Spicy Chicken and Rice Cakes, and Pickled Daikon to soothe the tastebuds if the spiciness of the chicken became too much. The Spicy Chicken seemed a little sparse however but the thin tubes of rice cakes were a plenty in the sea of peppers and onions in a spicy hot bright red sauce dusted with sesame seeds. This is the other popular dish at Kyochon.

I think the chicken at Kyochon has been of little debate to anyone who has ever eaten there especially in a city where there are plenty places to eat fried chicken. Unfortunately I haven’t had the time or the transport to be able to go to these other places but I love Kyochon. Fried chicken there was akin to a pseudo religious experience for someone who loves chicken as much as I do. Jonathan Gold’s Pulitzer-prize winning taste-buds swears by them too – read here.

Expect to spend about USD 10 a head here.

Kyochon
3833 W. Sixth St.
Los Angeles
(213) 739-929

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