Bok a Bok Chicken - White Center — Restaurant in Washington

Go to Popeyes Instead

Two stars because I didn't get sick and the place was clean.

Skillet was overrated and expensive (I would've skipped had I known this restaurant was created by the same chef); Bok A Bok is the same for me. It is a hip - conveniently-on-every-trendy-blog's Top Ten - new restaurant everybody keeps writing about, serving a gross misrepresentation of a better dish.

It's lazy, commoditized "comfort food" (the same problem I had with Skillet -- track down Jemil's Big Easy for real Southern Comfort Food). It is the furthest thing from "authentic" in regards to Asian cuisine.

The "Korean BBQ" sauce tasted like the base you'd use for mapo tofu (fermented soy beans), provided you never cooked it and just served it cold. Whatever name they had for their soy-ginger sauce tasted like Mr. Yoshida's Teriyaki sauce. It felt totally out of place, but tasted much better than the former.

The exterior was cracker-crunchy with huge air pockets; there was no discernable seasoning to the breading, outside of the last minute dusting of flavorless chili powder.

I've read that the exterior was supposed to be similar to tempura. That is not at all accurate. If you want good tempura, check out Toshio's, North of Little Saigon.

If you're going to do fried chicken, at least change and clean the fry oil frequently. My chicken thighs tasted of burnt breading and rancid fry oil.

The chicken itself was moist, but the (pre-cooked?) meat was not trimmed properly; which created huge pockets of chicken fat in the end product.

I don't know why the uptick in hipster chefs seem to think White Center is the place to charge people $10 for two mediocre pieces of chicken, but that's what you get at Bok A Bok. Skip it. Save your money. Go to the taco truck next door or check out Proletariat Pizza for better and cheaper food.

The good news is: Popeyes is coming this year, right...

One of the WORST experience I ever had. Plus it was my first time at Bok-A-Bok. The girl who was working at register counter was extremely rude.

Reviews aren't my thing, but this experience really got under my skin.

This is what happened: I came in to pick up my order but it wasn't ready; I didn't mind waiting at first. In addition, the girl at the counter told me take a seat in a rude way. She had a negative attitude towards every one who came in for some reason.

Quote girl at counter: "take a seat" - in a unfriendly tone.

Come on, you work in food / customers service change your attitude. I used to work in food services & I was never rude to my customers, even if I had a bad day. No tip for you girl.

Anyways, so I sat there & waited. Time went by; 5 minutes turned into 10. 10 minutes turned into 20. While waiting, 4 people who ARRIVED AFTER ME got there ordered before I did..!!! At this point I was running out of patients. So I went to the counter & asked if my order was ready? Guess what you guys, my order was ready. It was just been sitting there. The girl didn't called my number or even my name to notify me. She just gave me my order without NO apologies for the wait. As if my time didn't matter to them. Girl you have one job, & you're not doing a very good job at it.

For the record, I love Korean fried chicken & trying different restaurants. Bok-A-Bok is a place I would NOT be coming back too. And I live 5 minutes away. There are more better places in UW & Federal Way.

Overall: Food was okay. Customer...

So I finally had to try BokBok and I have to say... Not quite the tastiness of say... Chicken McNggets.

Greasy, tasteless except for the breading that has a little aluminum canola corn mixture to add to the nauseum.

The folks were friendly enough and very helpful and I'm sure they're cooked it as per design.

The folks who invited me later explained that it's was a masterpiece of that guy with the bleach blonde hair in TV... And that makes sense as it tastes like what a bleach blonde fake suntan tv person would think of as tasty... And come to think of it... I do have a slight aftertaste of bleach.

For this wonderful flavor foray into the bouquet not dissimilar to the honeybuckets at the far side of the lesser Burroughs on the plane of Dis I made out for a measely $40 for two people.

Luckily I can not fork out $40 for greasy fat food. And provided I survive passing this brick of grease that is festering in my duodenum... I will not find myself tempted.

Please please let their be some new chicken joints opening up soon. This is... A good reason to deal with the traffic out of West Seattle... When one wants bird.

Horrors of horrors.

Arguably some of the worst food I've had.

But amazing what tv programming will get people to eat. We all talk about the horse pills that the fat right convince people to consume for the pandemic... But to me this is a comparable but of programming.

Really... Stay home .. make your...