Obi Bear

Ray had been singing the praises of Obi Bear's Korean fried chicken, so we met up there for a late dinner. The area around Obi Bear is a bit dodgy - I felt a little nervous as I was walking down the street from my car, (I wasn't aware of Obi Bear's parking lot, which is like a secret or something - no signs, just a caged area for cars. I ended up parking on Western, which was a few blocks away.) Funnily enough, Obi Bear is right next to an AA meeting place - convenient for people who fall off the wagon, I suppose. Location is everything!

Anyways, walking inside, there is the bar, and a bunch of booths. There was no seating in the non smoking area, so we had to go to the smoking area. On to the food!

Some salty snacks to get people in the mood for drinking. Dried salt coated peas, pretty good- nice and crunchy.

So here's what we got - the Korean fried chicken. It came with shredded cabbage with a thousand islandly sauce on top, jalapenos and the chicken, of course. There's also a tiny dish of seasoned salt too, I forgot to get a picture of that.

Here's a close up of the radishes, which definitely separates Korean fried chicken from other fried chicken I've had. The radishes are in a sweet brine, crunchy and with a good bite to each piece.

So here's the lowdown on this chicken - first off, it tasted a lot like chinese fried chicken, which I used to have when I was younger, during big Chinese banquets. (where are the shrimp chips!?) Take a piece of the chicken (with the paper thin fried skin, if you can). The seasoned salt is sprinkled on top. Take a bite, then quickly grab a piece of radish, and eat that right afterwards. The combination of sour, salty, crispy, crunchy, savory and textures is just...great. Swallow, repeat process. A bite of salad inbetween this cycle is always good too. A solid thumbs up from me.

I haven't had the other incantations of Korean fried chicken yet (Kyochon, Bonchon) but I heard about the gnarly wait times for ordering (sometimes up to 40 minutes?). Obi Bear's chicken came out pretty quickly, so I have no complaints there. I'm coming back - now that I finally know where their parking lot is.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/o-b-bear-los-angeles-2