Bon Chon - A Korean Fried Chicken Chain on Route 40 and Plum Tree Drive in Ellicott City

[HowChowBlog]

The folks who run Tutti Frutti in Ellicott City are going to open a Bon Chon franchise nearby. They have a Facebook page announcing the Bon Chon. They say it should open in "approximately" January 2012.

[HowChowBlog]

Bon Chon has been frying up chicken for more than a year now, and it's one of the happiest places to return -- although their missing "local options" make it harder to return as often as we could.

Bon Chon is a pleasure.  Their chicken comes incredibly crisp, and there is skill in everything from that chicken to the coleslaw.  

Bon Chon's chicken comes in spicy or a soy-garlic.  Order radishes and maybe white rice.  You'll get a bowl of pickled white radish cubes.  Pop one after a spicy bite.  The crunchy vegetable cools your mouth.  We order wings and "strips" -- which are thin slices of white meat.  Those are my favorite ratios of meat to crunch, although the wings are superb.  (The drumsticks are probably good too.  I just think they're more meat-to-crisp.)

The only issue is that spicy hot can just be really, really hot.  The garlic-soy is actually mild, and the spicy starts at fiery delicious, then can become just too much to handle.

My advice is order half-and-half or even one-quarter spicy (if they'll do that).  My other advice is to ask for the pickled radish side dish because crunching radish cubes can cool down your mouth.  The Rte 40 restaurant offered "Old Bay" and "honey-hot" flavors for a few weeks this summer, but those are gone now.  I get the idea that the franchise got heat from the central Bon Chon company.

The restaurant has a modern, clean design.  Most tables, some high tops, some seats at the bar.  At even the first dinner service, it was bouncing with a 20s crowd -- salted with a few tables of salt-and-pepper hair.  It's a casual vibe.  Noisy enough that kids are clearly welcome, and Bon Chon an enormous projector that makes this a spectacular spot for wings and Ravens games. 

On top of the chicken, they have a small menu of Korean dishes.  You could alternative chicken with bulgogi, bibimbob, or scallion-seafood pancakes.  We gorged on chicken every time that we visit, so we can' report.