Lunch

West LA Zankou

Granted, I may be the last person in the LA area to try Zankou Chicken. It took them opening an outlet in West LA for me to finally make my way there for lunch. I timed my visit intentionally before the lunch rush, although this was my first time, I know the reputation of Zankou and figured that shortly after noon the line would be substantial. Sure enough, when I got there around 11:30 I was able to walk straight up to the counter and by the time I left, the line was to the door. Since I haven’t been to any of the original Zankou locations I can’t compare the set up here to the others, but I will say that the place is clean, well airconditioned, there is plenty of seating and there is a parking lot just south on Sepulveda.

To say that I enjoy this type of meal is an understatement. If I had to pick a single food to sustain me for the rest of my life, it just might be rotisserie chicken. I like the skin to be crispy, the meat to be well cooked but still juicy, and the dark meat should fall off of the bone. I generally prefer dark meat to the breasts, and for chicken joints, I judge them based on the quality of their legs and thighs. Some places give you an anemic serving that is all skin and bone, with just a morsel of meat.

This being my first time, and since I was evaluating Zankou for myself, I ordered the dark chicken plate. Service was cordial but unremarkable, I placed my order and went to fill my cup. Disappointed that there wasn’t any brewed iced tea to pour (just the fake Nestea from the spigot), I settled for a Pepsi and took a seat by the window along Sepulveda. Not more than five minutes later my order was ready and I prepared to taste if the meal would live up to the hype. The first thing I noticed was the fresh, steaming pita bread on the top of my container, good sign that it wasn’t stale or straight from the package. When I opened the styrofoam container, I surveyed the offering.

I noticed that the leg and thigh were average size, the hummous had a generous topping of olive oil and paprika, and there was a side of some sort of beet salad. I scooped up some hummous with the pita and prepared to dig in. Wow, the consitancy of the hummous was amazing, almost the same as a smooth peanut butter and the flavor was fantastic, some of the better hummous I have had anywhere. Next was a scoop of the famous garlic sauce onto the chicken thigh. The chicken was cooked just how I like it, the skin crispy but not charred and a nice piece of meat on the bone.

The garlic sauce lived up to everything I had heard. It was soft and spreadable, almost like margarine, but packed a powerful (but not overpowering) garlic punch. I have had garlic sauce at a number of rotisserie chicken joints and most tend to be either too garlicky or just bland. This was neither and I can understand why people debate the secret recipe (I have heard that the secret is dehydrated potato flakes). The garlic sauce went on the chicken, on the pita, in my mouth on the fork, yum. I’m still tasting it as I write this.

My final taste was the beet salad. I don’t care for beets. I have tried to like them, but to me, they taste like dirt. I used to think the same thing about cilantro, and am getting more tolerant, so maybe there’s hope. This beet salad didn’t have a dirt flavor at all though. The beets are marinated/pickled and had a great flavor(edit: it has been pointed out, and verified by me, that those are not beets, they are pickled turnips.). I believe that they were blanched and then marinated, so they were a bit crispy but not too crunchy. They sat on a bed of chopped tomoatoes which were tasty as well. I realized after I finished, perhaps I was supposed to put the salad on the pita instead of just shoveling it in with a fork.

Final verdict? Excellent meal, reasonable price and I will be back. My belief is that you don’t go to Zankou for the chicken, you go for all that comes with the chicken. The garlic sauce is the obvious draw, but I wouldn’t count out the hummous and the beet salad even has some appeal.

Zankou West LA
1716 S. Sepulveda Blvd #101, Los Angeles
310-444-0550

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.

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