Tian Trio: Fried Chicken, Black Beans And Pork

Black bean noodles

This is the season for comfort food, and you can get a lot of comfort at Tian Chinese Cuisine trying Korea's Chinese food -- with a side order of spicy chicken.

Tian is a modern casual restaurant in the same shopping center as Shin Chon Garden, and it brought Korean fried chicken to the county several years ago.  But the main menu offers the dishes that you'd find in a "Chinese" restaurant if you were in Seoul.

Korean fried chicken

We have just tried the basics at Tian.  With several friends, we started with with our standards:  the chicken and black bean noodles.  Korean fried chicken comes twice-fried and really crispy.  Tian's is not particularly spicy, but it's scrumptious, especially with one of the Korean beers like Hite.

The black bean noodles are a real central point for Tian.  They hand-pull the noodles in the kitchen.  You can hear the thwack, thwack, thwack if they're making them while you eat.  The tender noodles come topped with a thick black bean sauce -- a deep and complex flavor that makes clear that it is as "simple" as a terrific Italian tomato sauce.  At $7, the bowl is one of the greatest bargains in the county.  At any price, they're one of our favorite meals.

Sweet and sour pork

We tried something new by ordering sweet-and-sour pork or "pork tangsuyuk."  That was deep-fried chunks of pork -- crisp, but still tender inside.  We got the spicy version with a sticky sauce that came with dried red peppers and pineapples.

That trio would be a terrific start to anyone who wants to try Tian.  I think we did two noodles, two pork and a platter of chicken for six adults and one child.  We probably could have had a single pork.  Tian has a compete menu -- all in English - that you can explore.  On other nights, I enjoyed the stir-fried squid over rice.  But this trio -- noodles, chicken and pork -- are really accesible flavors for anyone who likes American Chinese food.  It's a great idea for anyone who wants to eat warm and hearty.

I know other folks have really enjoyed Tian.  What else do you recommend there?  Or at the other local Korean-Chinese restaurant, Hanjoongkwan on Rte 40 in Ellicott City?  How do they compare?

Korean Fried Chicken At Tian Has Brought The Crunch -- And The Spice -- To Ellicott City

The Korean fried chicken at Tian Chinese Cuisine brings a unique crunch and some serious heat if you're looking for that high-cholesterol, high-flavor treat that you can't make at home.

Tian now offers chicken from a Mad for Chicken franchise inside the Ellicott City restaurant known before for its Korean-Chinese menu and especially for the house-made noodles.

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 Mrs. HowChow 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.

My advice is that two people split an order of chicken and an order of the black beans with noodles -- jjajangmyun or #1 on Tian's menu.  Personally, I'd order the wings or white meat.  The ratio of crunch to meat was perfect in the wings.

If you want more on Korean fried chicken, start with Henry Hong's review of a Virginia Bon Chon franchise.  Such the right description that I link often for fear that I'm unwittingly plagiarizing Hong's language.

Korean Fried Chicken Has Come To Howard County, And I Need To Go On A Pilgrimage

Tian's photo from Twitpics

Korean fried chicken appears to have come to Howard County -- a Mad For Chicken franchise being run from the Tian Chinese Cuisine on Rte 40 in Ellicott City.

Mad for Chicken looks like a franchising company.  Its Web site doesn't actually say "Korean fried chicken," but the pictures have the look of the twice-fried crispy birds that I have only been able to sample at a Bon Chon in New York.

Tian Chinese Cuisine serves Korean-Chinese food.  It's Chinese as it's sold on Seoul, and you should check it out for the house-made noodles that Tian's kitchen bangs out every day.  Delicious in a black bean sauce.

Tian tweeted about the new fried chicken yesterday.  I need to stop by the restaurant in the Lotte Plaza just east of Rte 29 to see if it lives up to Henry Hong's description of the Bon Chon product:

Its product is pretty typical, with an aroma that slaps you in the face with garlic (definitely powder and fresh, in my opinion); a glaze that possesses a pretty straightforward combo of salty, sweet, and in the case of the “spicy,” a fast-acting, mouth-filling heat; and an exterior that although is often described as “shatteringly crispy” is more accurately somewhere between crispy and crunchy, with just a tiny hint of chew. The meat itself is unseasoned, but extremely moist, protected from drying by its cornstarch cocoon. It’s good, finger-lickingly even, but not life-changing, and probably not worth a trip halfway around I-495. Not on a regular basis anyway.

Does anyone know if the Korean fried chicken stand ever opened inside the H Mart in Catonsville?

Tian Chinese Cuisine in Ellicott City

From the outside, Tian Chinese Cuisine looks like an anonymous hole in the wall Chinese joint, but it actually isn't any of those things.

Tian isn't really a Chinese restaurant.  It serves Korean food, the kind of menu served as "Chinese" in Seoul in the same way that General Tso's Chicken is sold as "Chinese" around here.  It also isn't anonymous.  The door opens into a bright, modern space with trendy stone-tile walls and an open kitchen.

Listen for the difference.

Thwack!  Thwack!  Thwack!  That sound from the kitchen is the reason that you should try Tian.

I'd read about Korean-Chinese cooking in Kevin's guest post about the options along Rte 40.  We had even eaten at Hanjoongkwan and started with the Korean-Chinese basics of kangpoongi (fried chicken) and jjajangmyun (noodles in black bean sauce).  But everyone lamented that none of the local places made their own noodles -- until now.