Gol Tong Chicken — Restaurant in Los Angeles

This unassuming stripmall K-Fried Chicken joint is so uniquely LA and it deserves all the praise it gets and MORE. The former South Korean Film Director turned restaurant owner/chief/server/busser/cleaner/EVERYTHING ELSE is an absolute GEM, and you can taste the passion this man puts into every damn meal he whips up. Sure, the wait time for his delicious creation might be a tad on the longer side, but it's probably due to the fact that this place is a ONE MAN OPERATION!! No one else. Just one man and his chicken. And the chicken is something of beauty. From the sauces that pair wonderfully with the chicken, to the juicy, tenderness of the chicken itself. Not to mention the utter uniqueness of mixing fried chicken with fresh fruit - sounds insane, I know, but this devious madman pulls it off! Everything about it is just bliss you can taste!

This is the type of place you NEED to put as a permanent spot in your LA food rotation. It's the type of place you bring any out-of-towners to in order to show 'em how the locals eat. It's the type of spot that COMMANDS respect, love, and loyalty. Every ounce of me wants to gatekeep it... to greedily keep the precious diamond in the rough all to myself... but alas, I have a moral obligation to spread the love and let you all know that you need to come here and tell everybody you know about it. The late, great Tony Bourdain would have loved this golden nugget, and so will you. Cheers to Gold...

Amongst the selective list I have for K-food, Korean fried chicken was doubtlessly one of them and TBH, haven't yet met anyone hating it. Gol Tong chicken's definitely made it to the top list in the city, probably driven by both the taste but also the fact that it's owned by a movie director.

Dining there, it's astonishing that the petite place decorated by multiple movie posters of the director's, only had one server who seemed to perform one-man show from taking orders up to cooking and serving the foods.

Thankfully the place was so peculiar that they only offered 3 different menu, which were the ways the fried chicken served; Fried with no sauce, with Chili, and with Soy Garlic. We went for their Director's Cut, which served all of them and in the filling portion to be shared among 3-4 people. Each of them had their own unique flavor and I could say all were yum, with my favorite being the Chili one as it had all sweet, savory, and bit spicy hint. It's great as well they topped the dish with various fruits as the refreshing fruits well balanced the fried chicken. The soy garlic was more on the sweet side so if you fancied that kind of sauce this might be for you. The plain fried one did come with luscious dipping sauces, which I guessed were honey mustard and barbecue. The boneless chicken pieces were just complete, having both thighs and breasts, so all kinds of liking got satisfied.

The place certainly...

Interesting take on fried chicken. Not my cup of tea but it’s a unique, indescribable spin to a traditional Korean fried chicken. I appreciate how passionate and proud the owner is of his recipe.

Food: we got the half and half special. Both are new flavors that stray from the traditional soy and marinated chicken. The toppings were new but it didn’t belong with friend chicken. There were a variety of fruits (strawberry, blueberry, avocado) and vegetables (peppers, paprika, tomato) and it was a bizarre mix of flavor. It felt like a fruit/vegetable salad crashed a fried chicken party. It just didn’t go well, chicken was soggy due to the “special sauce” and chicken itself was bland. It could have worked but I think various contrasting flavors and textures worked against what they were intending.

Service: the owner who is the main cook, is very passionate about his chicken and calls himself the director. He apparently makes movies? I love how passionate he is and how proud he is of his menu.

Accessibility: small, limited parking in a tiny plaza. Various street parking in the neighborhood.

Cleanliness: I went during 2020 covid so it’s hard to gauge cleanliness.

Price: it’s similar to other fried chicken places in ktown but it is above average. The pricing is placed with weird. A half, half is $27.40 and another is...