**** Don Chicken has closed
Recently, I was up in the Encinitas area and decided to make a couple of stops on my way back home. The First was to the Cal Pacific Orchid Farm which I had heard about from some folks I know who live in North County and also read this on Hidden San Diego. I decided to stop by. The huge greenhouse is located off of Orpheus Avenue which parallels the I-5. It was interesting finding the place as there’s a discreet single lane driveway from the street which heads up to the greenhouse and the small parking spaces.
Many of the beautiful plants are in lovely arrangements and the staff are so friendly. The gentleman working that day was very nice and spent almost a half hour chatting with me. My grandparents on Maui grew orchids and my Mom had a couple of plants when we lived in Kaimuki. For some reason, I thought that orchids needed a rather humid environment to grow, but the gentleman went through some of the various species, how they thrive in San Diego, that they do like moisture, but not too much water and not too much direct sun….which is why we saw so many in the Cloud Forest in Ecuador.
The gentleman obviously enjoys his job and has a real passion for orchids.
One thing I found interesting is that Cal Pacific will “board” your plants if they are not doing well, not blooming, or in need of additional care!
The folks here are wonderful. I’m going to make sure to get my orchids from them!
Cal Pacific Orchid Farm
1122 Orpheus Ave.
Encinitas, CA 92024
Hours:
Mon – Sat 9am – 4pm
Closed on Sundays
Of course the next item on the agenda was……well, what’s for lunch? A while back, someone, I don’t recall who, asked me if I had been to Don Chicken. I looked thru my emails and searched through my comments but was not able to find that recommendation. Well, you know me, could I fight off the temptation of some “KFC”? Probably not. Especially when it’s just a ten minute drive away.
Don Chicken is located off El Camino Real in one of the many strip malls lining the street. I arrived a few minutes before opening, so I headed over to Baker and Olive a few doors down to take a look at things.
The open sign lit up just as I started heading back toward the restaurant. Don Chicken is yet another chain from Korea, though my friends told me that the chain is really popular in Ho Chi Minh City? Which, for some reason made me think of Crispy Chicken n’ Tomato which declares itself the most popular KFC in Japan.
On this day, the place was a one man operation, at least while I was there. The menu features Oven Baked and Fried Chicken in various sauces. The specials include bulgogi, tteok-boki, a chicken sandwich, and even katsu. But, since this was a KFC joint, I was just going to get the Fried Wings. The wings only come in orders of 10, a bit much for me, but at least it was priced at $15.99, which was much cheaper per piece that the $8.99 I paid for 4 wings at BHC recently.
And after a short wait, my wings were ready.
The wings came with a rather large order of Mul Kimchi, crisp, not overly sweet, a good palate cleanser for fry-o-lated foods.
As for the wings, well these weren’t overly large, which I prefer as the skin/batter to meat ratio to more to my liking. The meat was moist and tender, no dark areas and no off flavors.
The batter was somewhat crunchy, but it really got soggy quickly. The seasoning seemed quite mild, but I had a raging thirst after eating 6 of these wings. I took the remaining wings home and even tried to revive in the air fryer, but that didn’t work too well. I’m thinking that if I tried this again it would have to be with some kind of sauce; but based on experience with other KFC chains of this ilk, I’m going to assume it’s going to be too sweet and heck, it already gets soggy-mushy too quickly anyway.
So perhaps I’ll just give it a rest? If you’ve visited Don Chicken what was your meal like?
Don Chicken
215 S. El Camino Real Suite G
Encinitas, CA 92024
Current Hours:
Mon – Sat 11am – 9pm
Sunday 3pm – 9pm
Egads! This was a bit too much for the both of us. The egg was slightly overcooked, which isn't too bad. But so was the rice. But the thing that really got us was how overly sour; almost puckery, and sweet this was. Also, the menu said it was filled with chicken fried rice, but other than a few tiny pieces, it seems that the bird had flown the coop?
It wasn't fried quite as well, though it was more highly seasoned this time. I swear they put some togarashi on this which I liked. One the negative side, the cut this time around was thicker, with some fairly large pieces. The thicker pieces were dry and only the thin slices made it thru the meal maintaining some crispness. I'm glad they gave me two slices of lemon as I needed them both. Not as good as what we'd had on the previous visit.
My zaru soba arrived looking pretty much the same as always. The tsukemono, mildly pickled, crunchy, which I enjoy with a touch of shoyu seemed so familiar.
As I will usually do when having zaru soba, I have a taste of the tsuyu straight up. And man, this was potent! Very strong dashi, nice soy sauce tones, quite savory. I'd only be doing a one-third "dunk" of my noodles in this! I added all the fresh wasabi and scallions, and a bit of ginger which really added a pleasurable pungency and palate cleansing layer to things.
As you can see, the chicken took up only two-thirds of the sandwich surface area, so there were "fowl-less" bites and with all that bread and mayo, it was hard making heads or tails of the flavors. So even though that label said "please enjoy it as soon as served" there was no way I could finish this. I put half in the fridge at work and took it home. During dinner that evening, I brought out the remainder of the sandwich and the Missus and I took out the piece of chicken. Even though the batter had sloughed off, it seemed like the chicken thigh meat was nicely seasoned and fairly tender. 
The wings were on the larger end of the spectrum and were lightly seasoned. The sauce was much too sweet for me. 
The fries were nice and crisp, the type that was dusted to add to the texture. It was decently seasoned.
There were four shrimp which used the same batter, quite crisp. The rather larger shrimp were on the tougher side; like it had been cooked too long. The flavor was quite assertive, not overly sweet, but savory, I believe this was farmed shrimp as it lacked the oceany sweetness. Still, pretty big shrimp if you're into these things.
Which meant that when I bit into it, flakey croissant shrapnel flew everywhere! Also, the ham had attained almost a bacon like texture during the heating process. The ham gave the croissant a good bit of saltness; though I would have enjoyed a straonger butter flavor. The interior was light and not overly doughy. This was not bad.
