bb.q Chicken Hacienda Heights — Restaurant in La Puente

BBQ Chicken is one of the most popular chicken franchises in South Korea. Fried chicken, which almost always is paired with cold beer, is so popular in South Korea that one can find a fried chicken pub in every street, and even, literally, on the street. BBQ Chicken, together with a couple of nation wide brands, is favored not necessarily due to the quality as such (you can find better local Fried Chicken bistro in terms of price, quality, and quantity wherever yo go) but due to its quality control. Think of all other big brands: they are successful not primarily because of the exceptional taste but rather because of the consistent quality of taste wherever you go ('In and Out' comes to mind). You know what you expect when you buy, and usually they deliver what they promise.

That said, unfortunately that is NOT the case about this pub. I ordered 'Half & Half' (Half Original and Half Secret Spicy, $24.99), 'Honey Garlic' (boneless, mediucm, $13.99), and Onion Rings ($5.99). Original was good, but not great. I was confused what was special about so called 'Secret Spicy', from which I could not sense any secrecy at all. Honey Garlic was so plain that I had to add garlic source from the other Korean Fried Chicken bistro in Buena Park (Hella Chicken, which is better), and finally, Onion Rings were disaster, which should be easier to cook.

Since they opened just a few days ago, I would like to give them a benefit of doubt. Because of the location (less than a half mile from my home), I may visit one more time after a while. But at this point, I'm reluctant to recommend it to those who fancy Korean Fried Chicken because of K-Drama.

One more thing, I would like to add is, for the sake of the owner, there was a Korean Fried Chicken bistro in the same premise just a couple of years ago (Ari Chicken). Objectively speaking, their chicken was better than this one but nevertheless they had to close it. I don't know the reason behind it but what I suspect is twofold: I never saw the owner, and the employees seemed disinterested. There might be a correlation between indifference of the employees with the absence of the owner.

I post this rather a long review with a sincere heart that this business be successful. I hope that the owner listen and improve sooner than later.

Food: 5/10 Service: 3/10 (a lot to improve in terms of the demeanor of the cashier) Interior: N/A (Basically, this is a To-Go restaurant)

Update It's been a while since I posted the first review, which I promised to update in about six months. Finally, I ordered half/half (Original and Spicy) today (1/16/2022, $24.99). I'm sorry to say that the quality of the food is very disappointing, to say the least, considering the price and the reputation of K-chicken. 'Original' was neither tasty nor crispy as it should be, 'Spicy' didn't have a kick as it should do, and the marinated radish was so poor in taste and texture (why do they chop it by one fourths of the original size, which not only spoils the flavor but also the texture?) that I almost wanted to throw it out. It is NO better than any Chicken you can find in the States. Why would you venture this place over against Kentucky Chicken or Popeyes, which is less expensive? As I posted before, if you want to enjoy K-chicken, there are many places to spend your hard-earned money. This is NOT up to the standard of the K-chicken, and I would NOT recommend this place to anyone who would like to try it. This is a knock-off K-chicken at its worst. I guess I will not visit this place ever again, barring a drastic improvement. Regrettably, I’ve got to downgrade it from three stars...

This is the worst bb.q chicken I’ve ever been to. Not being around that location, I didn’t know it was more of a “takeout” setting but because self ordering dining kiosk had “dine in” option, 2 previous coworkers and I decided to still eat there since we all never been to this location. The self order kiosk was really dirty and sticky too.

Once the food came out, food was on a tray which was fine but when I asked for plates to eat the chicken off of, they said “we don’t give plates” so we had to eat it off of one of the 3 napkins they gave us.

Tteokbokki was extremely dry and barely had any sauce. The spicy fried wings we ordered wasn’t even fully battered. This wasn’t my first time eating and ordering these items so I know how it tastes and how it looks like but it was nothing close to what I usually tasted or have seen before. Even when we asked for additional napkins we received a “nasty look” because our fingers gotten so dirty because we didn’t even have plates so we had no choice but to ask.

To top it off, the owner randomly came to us and kicked us out by saying they are closing in 5 minutes at 730pm. I heard the owner say to his wife in Korean that “ oh I told them to leave because we are closing in 5 minutes” I was really pissed off with how they treated us. By the time I walked by after I ate, it was still open.

If they told us from the beginning to not dine in and do a take out, we would’ve done so or ate somewhere else. We were treated with disrespect and ruined the moods for all 3 of us. I do usually give 15% minimum but I didn’t know I pressed 0% until my previous coworkers told me so maybe that’s what caused bad service or something but I’m glad I didn’t.

Never going to come to this location again and with rising food prices, it felt like I...

Very bad experience.

I called the number to confirm their hours and someone answered the phone just saying "Hello?".

I asked for their hours but the lady on the phone did not understand me.

After trying to ask again in several way, I said "nevermind" and she hung up on me immediately.

I figured since she answered, they were open.

The place is owned by an older Korean couple who does not speak much English.

You order on a tablet, so ordering is not a problem.

The first issue is that pickled raddish is not included with wings at this location. This is the first time I have encountered that issue since most BB.Q locations include it.

I did not realize that until I got my food. I asked for pickled raddish and they pointed at the menu showing that a side of it would cost $0.99. I told them I would order it on the tablet.

They then said something about $10 in broken English but I did not understand at first.

After a while, I guessed that there was a minimum order of $10 for credit card transactions, so I handed him $2 for 2 sides of pickled raddish.

We waited for 5 minutes and then had to approach the man asking for the pickled raddish but he seemed to think he already gave it to us.

He walked over and then finally realized he never gave us the pickled raddish.

He was apologetic. I think his wife yelled at him after.

The next issue is that the wings are a bit smaller than the other locations I've visited.

Thankfully, the wings did actually taste pretty good. I had the honey garlic wings. They tasted similar to the other locations.

Other BB.Q locations are not too far away. If this is the closest to you, I would consider driving to a slightly...