Daniel B.
Yelp
One of my favorite Korean fried chicken chains, Choong Man Chicken, opened its first metro Atlanta ITP (inside the perimeter) location in West Midtown, next to Georgia Tech. This location is much more convenient to my home in nearby Atlantic Station, so I have less reason to make the 30-minute drive to Duluth: http://bit.ly/33A5FCv. There's also a CM Chicken in Suwanee and there used to be one in Alpharetta/Johns Creek.
This location opened in August 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, Tech students did not and still have not returned to campus in full, so I think that has hurt this business. This space used to be the old Tech Taco: https://bit.ly/3pzVp8m. It's in the same strip as Atlanta favorite Sublime Doughnuts.
I placed my order online by following the link on CM Chicken's website: https://www.cmchickengt.com/. I was able to pay online so all I had to do was pick-up in-store. My order was ready and waiting by the time I arrived about 10 minutes later. Fast, but the restaurant didn't seem busy at the time either (a Thursday night around 8pm).
I got a couple of my favorites:
#6. Snow Onion ($14.99 for a half chicken) - topped with raw sliced onion and a sweet, creamy, mayo-based sauce
#9. Garlic Soy Tikkudak ($14.99 for a half chicken) - chicken that has been fried then baked in a "tikku" charcoal oven
#22. Cole Slaw ($2.59)
I'm happy to report that the food was great. In general, the chicken was extra crispy and delicious. Seeing how this is a franchise of a popular worldwide chain, it appears they've done a pretty good job of getting the company's tried-and-true formulas and recipes right, at least from my experience.
This was my first time ordering Snow Onion chicken to-go. As with other foods prepared to-go, CM Chicken serves the onion and sauce in separate containers on the side. If you dine in, the onion and sauce are served on top of the chicken. Of course, serving the onion and sauce on the side made sense so the chicken wouldn't get soggy during transport. My only gripe here is they gave way too many onions and not enough sauce. The amounts of each should have been reversed.
Before applying the onion and sauce, the chicken was essentially CM's #1 Fried Chicken which is less expensive than the flavored/sauced chicken options (e.g. $10.99 for a half chicken as opposed to $14.99 for a half Snow Onion chicken). It's just plain fried chicken with not much flavor there. I don't recommend it - definitely get one of the flavored chickens.
The raw white onion in the Snow Chicken is very thinly sliced. I'm not sure what they do to the onion, if anything (such as soaking it in cold water), but the onion flavor is mild and not strong at all. It's not like taking a bite out of a fresh raw onion from the grocery store and that's a good thing; otherwise, the Snow Chicken would be overpowered by sharp and pungent onion flavor, which would make it unenjoyable. The white sauce reminds me of a mayo-based sauce one might eat with American potato salad. It's appetizing, creamy, and a little bit sour and vinegary. It goes well on the fried chicken.
The Garlic Soy Tikkudak chicken was fantastic. It was wonderfully crispy, crunchy, and scrumptious. The sauce was expectedly sweet and sticky. If you want to try what I consider "classic" or quintessential Korean fried chicken, I recommend the Garlic Soy Tikkudak. It encompasses both the satisfying texture and gratifying flavor of Korean fried chicken, in my opinion.
When ordering chicken from CM Chicken, you get the choice of wings, tenders, or half a chicken for the same price or you can go with a whole chicken for more. When ordering a half or whole chicken, every piece will be bone-in and consist of breasts, wings, legs, drumsticks, and thighs.
I ordered the Cole Slaw to try and help balance out all the meat. One area I think CM Chicken can improve is their side menu. It's all carbs and/or fried stuff. Yeah, I know, going to a fried chicken joint isn't healthy to begin with, but I do think they can offer some other sides to help offset the heaviness of the rest of the menu. Something other than fries and onion rings. The slaw was yummy. Mayo-based, finely-chopped, and decent portion size. I was pleased.
In total, CM Chicken offers over a dozen different kinds of Korean fried chicken types/flavors, from Curry to Red Hot Pepper, with prices generally in line with what I posted above. Most whole chickens run about $22-25 each. I think these prices are reasonable. The prices at Mukja, an independent, locally-owned Korean fried chicken restaurant on the other side of Midtown, run higher.
As a Tech alum, I appreciate all the Yellow Jacket decor inside the dining room. There are plenty of tables and a TV for entertainment. Drinks were self-serve. They have a spacious, covered, outdoor patio too. However, there were only three tables out there when I looked.
Thanks to Christina (Kristina?) for the sweet and friendly service.