Golden Chicken - San Jose

I noticed the sign for the Grand Opening and thought I’d check it out. What a big mistake. We ordered banh canh and crispy noodles with seafood, but the food took ages to arrive. We ordered from several windows, and this one took at least 10-15 minutes longer than the others. When the food finally came, it was utterly flavorless. The banh canh tasted as if they had simply warmed up tap water and added a bit of coloring. The crispy noodles were slightly better, but still very bland. I definitely won’t be returning!

True to its name, this restaurant offers a variety of chicken dishes. I ordered the bamboo chicken noodles simply because I was craving chicken and noodles. I was expecting pho, but unfortunately, the noodles turned out to be a strange white variety. This seems to happen to me more often than I'd like to admit. Overall, the noodles were decent, but I wish the chicken was of better quality. There's a sit-down restaurant next door that serves better chicken. I added some sriracha to the noodles for extra flavor. They also offer complimentary Thai iced tea, which I initially declined, but they insisted, so I accepted. I’ll likely return to try other chicken dishes, as I hope to find some with higher quality chicken. If not, there’s always the pho restaurant next door.

I ordered the fried chicken, number 46, I believe. The staff were really nice to us. The chicken was delicious, but the rice was just alright. On the plus side, there’s free Thai tea! I would definitely return because that fried chicken was truly fantastic!

When are they taking that Grand Opening sign down?! It 's been there for months. I thought it was time to give it a try this weekday afternoon. Got the Korean BBQ plate with garlic rice. Quick service and the lady getting my cash only payment was nice. Free short glass of ice tea. Food: My K BBQ meat came lukewarm on parts with an oily sheen, and had too much fat, almost a whole piece wasted. The garlic brown rice smelled chemically weird while steaming hot could be that they used garlic powder on it? Anyway it was unappetizing. Thai ice tea and veggies were fine. Overall, unimpressed. Moving on...

In the Little Saigon section of San Jose, there 's a mall, with about a billion little food court style restaurants. Golden Chicken is a new one, a spin off of Thai Lovers, right next door. They mostly serve typical Vietnamese rice plates for under $10, which you order from a wall full of large photographs. I don 't expect much service at a place like this, where you order and pickup at a counter, then go to the shared cafeteria style tables, but the proprietor was very attentive, brought the food to us, and came out to offer free refills of Thai iced tea. We had two of the plates. The Korean BBQ beef was flavorful but chewier than most. Very generous portion. The fired chicken was really good. Chicken breast breaded with panko, and fried to a deep golden brown. Very crispy, not at all oily. In both cases, the rice was golden in color and cooked in something flavorful (not sure what but it was good. Not much here in terms of ambience but very good for an afternoon bite. They also have fried bananas and fried ice cream. One note: The address listed by Yelp is misleading they are not on Story Rd, they are in the Grand Century mall. I 'll submit a correction but in the meantime, use the map to get to the vicinity but go into the mall to find the restaurant.