| Cooked to order Korean style fried chicken |
Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 1040
Reviewed: 4/17/2007
Rating: 8
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We arrived at 99 Chicken for some Korean style fried chicken. I don't know how I got Terry to visit but he made it. Not quite the experience I had hoped for him as we were off to a rough start. 99 Chicken were short staffed which led to unprepared salad bar, no steam rice, and long wait time to order.
Terry got no love with our waiter either. As I made my order of the combination fried chicken, he skipped right over Terry. We had to flag him back to take Terry's order of spicy tofu dish no pork.
With only 1 guy running the entire restaurant, by the time he served out the drinks and prepped the fryer, 20 minutes had elapsed and another 10-15 minutes for frying time. Help finally arrived and the lady started to stock the salad bar (image 4). There wasn't much rice and it appeared to be from the previous night. She said something I couldn't understand, smiled and left with a styrofoam container. She returned a couple of minutes later and brought back steam rice. I think she bought it at the sushi place next door. She waved me over and I was able to fill my bowl with fresh rice. How cool is that?
For lunch, I shared a 10 piece combination chicken ($15, image 6,7) with Mark. They aren't small wussy pieces either, these are FULL size drumsticks and wings. None of the chicken is under a heat lamp as they are all cooked to order. I watched him take a knife and poke through the chicken, dump them in the bucket of dry batter, into the deep fryer, shakes the basket a couple of times, eyes the color of the batter, and removes. The owner takes special care of the chicken...you are in good hands.
There are 4 flavors in the combination chicken order.
plain batter - my favorite of the 4, batter very crunchy, not too oily on the outside, chicken was juicy and fully cooked. With proper oil temperature, you're basically sealing all the goodness (fat) within the batter casing. They advertise using cottonseed oil which I'm not too familiar with as peanut oil is normally my choice. Seasonings consisted of salt/pepper with a dominant ginger flavoring. I could eat a dozen wings with beer....hmmm. When your done with the bones, throw them in the steel container (image 10) on the table.
sweet chicken - tasted like honey chicken to me. same great batter and crunch but with honey like glaze. Easy repeat order if you like your chicken sweet.
hot spicy chicken - same batter but with a red sweet and spicy glaze, and topped off with garlic?. Spice was relatively hot, about a 7 on the heat scale. Thank god the batter was still crunchy and not soggy.
red glaze chicken or whatever they called it. It was basically the hot spicy red chicken minus the spicy stuff. It was red, kinda sweet, kinda tangy, kinda like sweet and sour? My least favorite of the batch.
The fried chicken passes my test with flying colors. The chicken here is super good and already on the repeat visit list. I want to try the whole chicken as I prefer white meat to dark.
Terry on the other hand had to wait an additional 10 minutes after we got the fried chicken. To make matters worse, they forgot to serve the spicy tofu (image 11) without pork. She apologized and went back to the kitchen, returned with new bowl. I think Terry liked it but was pretty much bummed on the entire lunch.
I loved the plain batter chicken the most followed by the hot spicy chicken. There's good ventilation and you won't smell too bad when you get back to work. 99 Chicken is a true mom and pop business that any jatbar fried chicken lovin' user should visit. They are open from noon until midnight. Cash and credit cards accepted. Service was very slow and even though communication might be difficult, their genuine smile shows they appreciate your business. Who knows, you might even get lucky and land a photo on their wall of fame.
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almost forgot, he broke out with the james bond wet naps. He took these white pills and soaked them into a saucer dish with water. The pills soak up the water and magic..... image 9
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Reviewer: pyunnyhana
Total Reviews: 47
Reviewed: 6/10/2007
Rating: 7.5
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I bought the two piece original chicken and I must say that it was pretty good. It included a drumstick and a wing. I really like the fact that the batter was thin and crisp, unlike other places where the batter is too thick and salty. 8/10
My sister bought the Kimchee jigae (kimchee soup) and that was okay. Not a repeat order for me honestly. It was quite spicy though. 7/10
The salad bar was so so. I actually really liked their wasabi dressing. That was very good. I slathered that stuff over my broccoli and chicken.
The owners were very friendly and I think that's what most important. You can have good food, but friendly service is what would keep me coming back (I'd come back for their chicken too haha) I'd also would like to try out their other dishes. I think they had one dish with bugs in it! I think it was called pupa? That was surprising.
Do you know why it's called "99 Chicken"? In Korean, the number nine can be pronounced as "ku", so really, it's "Kuku Chicken"! ahaha I thought that was cute. |
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Reviewer: ne00
Total Reviews: 187
Reviewed: 2/4/2009
Rating: 8
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Straight up fried chicken beats Colonel’s secret recipe hands down. As my friend stated "This is bomb chicken!" Nice thin layer of crispiness wrapped over a juicy piece of chicken. Both the drumstick and wings were full size pieces. My friend and I shared the 10 piece fried chicken and we were both filled after the meal. The owners encouraged us to get the free salad and help ourselves to water, tea and rice at the self serve service station. The salad bar wasn’t much but the shredded lettuce with corn and some sort of dressing was good.
From the menu I didn’t know how to order half regular and half honey chicken as the ordering process was either done by ordering individual pieces or 10 pieces at a time. I would have much preferred five original and five honey flavored. The owners were nice although wasn’t really able to assist in answering my question how to order half original and half honey.
This fried chicken is way better than any other fast food fried chicken I’ve had. The fried chicken stood out on its own without needing any extra sauce. A little pricey as 10 pieces ran a bit over 12 bucks, but definitely good. They also offer party trays. I also noticed that you can order anything they offer on the menu that’s not listed as a choice. For example, they had fish and chips on the menu but didn’t list just the fries yet one table ordered fries only and they did a price adjustment for them. I wish they offered more items on the menu that aren’t so spicy or offered mild versions of those items.
99 Chicken accepts MC and Visa and is located in the Petco Plaza.
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Reviewer: takeru
Total Reviews: 31
Reviewed: 4/14/2009
Rating: 8.5
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Fellow fried chicken aficionados RL, JG, and I were originally going to satisfy our cravings at the nearby and newly opened popeyes at cupertino square. 99 cent tuesday was beckoning! But fortunately we came to our senses and made the trek out to 99 chicken. And it was worth it! Am glad to report that this place continues to be totally legit.
We ordered both the plain and the spicy for a total of 20 pieces, figuring that the 3 of us would duke it out for the last 2 pieces at the end.
Since 99 cooks fresh to order, there's a wait until your chicken is ready, but that'll give you time to check out the salad bar. It's pretty small but the items are fresh, crisp, and healthy, so a nice counterbalance to the deep friend goodness you are about to receive. I recall 2 types of lettuce, spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, corn, and several types of dressing, and am sure I'm omitting something. There's also self serve ice water and steamed rice in case you don't want to eat pure chicken.
They apparently cook in batches and brought us part of our plain order first. This is the closest to 'traditional' fried chicken that they serve and my overall favorite. Lightly coated w/ batter, just a touch of salt, and not too greasy - you can really taste the chicken. Overall, they had less batter than KFC extra crispy or popeyes.
The remainder of our order arrived a few minutes later and they gave us an extra piece so that we could each have 7 - very considerate. The spicy seems to start out as the plain, with an extra step where it's smothered w/ a honey hot sauce. The result is a very tasty combo of hot/sweet/fried, not something so hot that it'll kill your taste buds like the atomic wings at wingstop. I'd rank this a very close 2nd to the plain and would order either again w/o hesitation.
99 chicken earns an extra half point for being considerate, even though that became a moot point since svelte RL gave up his last piece so that porker JG could have 8(!).
99 cent tuesday will just have to wait. ;-) |
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