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Tian Korean Chinese / Mad for Chicken - Handmade Noodles and Korean Fried Chicken in Ellicott City


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Tian Chinese Cuisine actually isn't Chinese. It is Korean food -- the "Chinese" cuisine sold in Seoul in the same way that General Tso's Chicken is sold as Chinese cuisine here.

As I have read, one of the basics are noodles served either in black bean sauce (jjajangmuyn) or in a spicy seafood soup (jjampong). But people had bemoaned the fact that no one around here makes their own noodles.

Until now. An acquaintance told me that Tian had begun to smack out their own noodles. Literally. In the restaurant (and in the short video), you hear the thwack, thwack, thwack of someone slamming out noodle dough in the kitchen. With that inspiration, we ended up on only our second night of Korean-Chinese. Clearly, we're not the experts to comment on the intricacies of jjajangmyun, but the black bean noodles were delicious comfort food to me. The noodles are tender and chewy. They absorb the mild, black bean sauce, and it's a great contrast with the pickled radishes and onion that they serve as a limited panchan.

We had jjajangmyun (#1) and a cold noodle soup (#18). Thinner noodles in the soup, also chewy. They came in cloudy broth with some hard boiled egg, a few slices of beef and paper-thin radishes. It's garnished with thin-cut vegetables, and you flavor it yourself with the clear vinegar that comes on the table and some excellent wasabi that comes in a small bowl. With the cold and the hint of vinegar, the soup came across like gaspacho. Refreshing and perfect after a hot day, although the taste is more mild and earthy rather than diced vegetables.

Overall, Tian is a fun, inexpensive evening. Those two dishes would have filled us for less than $20. We also ordered steamed dumplings, which were fine but not special. Next time, I going for jjampong, the handmade noodles served in a spicy seafood soup. Tian offers combo meals where you can get two half orders on a plate split into two halves

If the media link at the top of this post doesn't work, I posted the short video on Facebook.
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I've been meaning to stop at Tian, located in the same shopping center as Lotte in Ellicott City since Howchow posted on his blog that they have handmade noodles. What finally got me to go this weekend was that they also added Mad for Chicken, a Korean fried chicken chain in the same place.

I stopped in Sunday, and knowing that the fried chicken takes 30 minutes to be cooked, ordered a bowl for their handmade samsun jjajangmyun (blackbean sauce with seafood) for the wait.

The noodles were good although I like mine a little more chewy. The black bean sauce was chock full of shrimp and calamari.

The fried chicken was pretty good. My favorite might be BonChon as they kick up the spice level more, but the Mad for Chicken chicken had the great crispiness I expect from Korean style fried chicken. I'm happy I can get Korean chicken now without always driving to VA for it.

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I've been meaning to stop at Tian, located in the same shopping center as Lotte in Ellicott City since Howchow posted on his blog that they have handmade noodles. What finally got me to go this weekend was that they also added Mad for Chicken, a Korean fried chicken chain in the same place.

I stopped in Sunday, and knowing that the fried chicken takes 30 minutes to be cooked, ordered a bowl for their handmade samsun jjajangmyun (blackbean sauce with seafood) for the wait.

The noodles were good although I like mine a little more chewy. The black bean sauce was chock full of shrimp and calamari.

The fried chicken was pretty good. My favorite might be BonChon as they kick up the spice level more, but the Mad for Chicken chicken had the great crispiness I expect from Korean style fried chicken. I'm happy I can get Korean chicken now without always driving to VA for it.

Is the jjajungmyun more Chinese style or Korean style?

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I'm completely with 1000yregg that the great order is some fried chicken and some of the jjajangmyun -- noodles with black bean sauce.

The Korean fried chicken bring a unique crunch and some serious heat. The crunch comes from the Mad for Chicken coating that has a unique crispness. It's a thin, almost-brittle layer over moist chicken underneath. The meat isn't particularly spicy, but the glaze on the outside delivers all the flavor that you'd want -- salty/sweet for the regular and mouth-numbing for the spicy.

Seriously, the spice was almost too much for me, and my wife happily traded hot pieces for the regular when we ordered a mixed set.

The magic of Korean fried chicken is that the glaze delivers that flavor without soaking down the crisp coating. It's a delicious dinner, definitely worth a drive to the Lotte shopping center on Rte 40 and definitely a worthy alternative to Chick n'Friends in Columbia or Harvest Fried Chicken in Woodbine. Personally, I'd order the wings or white meat. The ratio of crunch to meat was perfect in the wings.

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We got away from Dino on thanksgiving and made for Shin Chon without checking to see if they were open.  They weren't.  We had eaten here once long ago and completely forgotten the specifics, but remembered liking it.  So we debated going to Hunan Taste or stopping in here.  But we ere simply too out of it to get back in the car.  Thus we stopped.  And are glad we did.

THe menu is long and it took a whilre for me to get it that this was Korean Chinese with a similar menu as Da Rae Won in Beltsville.  Once I had tat figured out, we decided to go for a lighter pair of dishes... steamed dumplings and Yangjang Pee Chapchae {Cold seafood, pork, jellyfish & vegetables w/ wasabi sauce.}

The dumplings had very thin skins wrapping a large cylinder of meat, veggie and a slightly pasty element {and pasty in a good, European dumpling esque pasty as opposed to too much cornstarch pasty.} When piping hot they were fabulous and by the end, meely very good.  This is the kind of restaurant, given the portion sizes we saw, to go with a bunch of people.  An order of these split 4 ways would ahve resulted in two perfect dumplings each.

The Chapchae is one that we get a lot at Da Rae Won and this one was even better.  The wasabi sauce is less up front heat and more up your nose heat.  After the first 3 bites, Kay needed a break and a beer to get her nose functioning again, while I called for more so I could dip mine for some real masochistic dining pleasure.  The real revelation were the jellyfish and sea cucumber, two items that usually have no flavor not purpose other than crunch.  But here they must have been simmered in a highy flavored broth as both were unusually tender and flavorful and totally addictive.  The shrimp were a touch watery but if very good flavor.  In all, much better than the excellent version from Da 
Rae Won.

The kimchee was good, the yellow pickled radish, onion and black bean paste were good but not as good at Da Rae Won.

No where on the menu does it say that the noodles are hand pulled.  But we realized they are when we heard the characteristic whomp whomp whomp of the noodle puller slamming down the noodles as they streach them to keep the individual strands separate.

Tian no poses a problem/.... its a fair hike to get up to 28 and US 40 for us, and now we have three favorite treats... Shin Chon, Hot Pot at Hunan Taste {and both of these far outstrip the equivalent spots we love in Annandale/Merrifield for these cuisines} and now Tian.  The Lotte plaza and the HAR plaza on US 40 offer some mighty fine eating!

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