Noodles And Fried Chicken: Pair Chapchae With Spicy Wings At Rte 40's Bon Chon Chicken

Chapchae at Bon Chon

Lil' Chow dances for noodles.  Thick noodles.  Thin noodles.  Fetticine with tomato sauce.  Udon with sesame oil.

That how we discovered the chapchae at Bon Chon Chicken, where we normally just ordered fried chicken and called it a day.

Bon Chon is the local outpost of a Korean chain that does amazing fried chicken -- crisp and crunchy  shell around moist and delicious meat.  We have left satisfied many times after nothing more than chicken and beer.

Fried chicken -- still amazing

But chapchae is a Korean noodle dish -- glassy sweet potato noodles stirfried with vegetables and sometimes meat.  I've recommended them as a vegetarian option at Shin Chon Garden, and I needed them for a boy who will sit patiently through dinner if you keep filling his plate with noodles.

Bon Chon's chapchae was exceptional.  Noodles with a terrific chewy texture.  The mild flavor of a sauce made with sesame oil and soy sauce and a generous mix of vegetables and thin-sliced beef.  Lil' Chow chowed and flirted with the waitresses.  I actually ate some chapchae because it was delicious enough to forgo even a few pieces of that great chicken.  Easily as good as Shin Chon Garden, our standard in Howard County where Lil' Chow had chapchae as recently as Sunday night.

Don't get me wrong.  You can go to Bon Chon just for the chicken and beer -- or the "Chi Mec" as it is known for the first syllable of the Korean work for beer.  But the chapchae makes a great pair if your group wants to try several flavors.  You could also order it vegetarian if your carnivore friends drag you to Bon Chon for dinner.

If you go to Bon Chon, definitely check out Shilla Bakery for dessert.  Bon Chon is in a shopping center that is parallel to Rte 40, but set back from the main road.  You actually enter from Plum Tree Road.  Shilla is in the shopping center that separates Bon Chon from Rte 40, and it has great coffees, pastries, cakes and other sweets.

New parenthood definitely makes blogging tough.  We are still learning to be efficient enough to have any free moments.  So I'm writing short posts this weeks on the theme of two items that you could buy at a single stop.