Golden Chicken - San Jose

Saw the Grand Opening sign and decided to give them a try. BIG MISTAKE. We ordered banh canh and crispy noodle with seafood. The food took FOREVER to come. We ordered from many windows and this one took at least 10-15 minutes longer than the rest. When the food finally came, it was completely tasteless. The banh canh tasted like they just heated up tap water and added some coloring. The crispy noodle was a tad better but still very bland. Definitely not coming back!

True to their name, this restaurant has various dishes that has chicken in it. I ordered their bamboo chicken noodle only because I was in the mood for chicken with noodles. Thought the noodles were going to be pho. Unfortunately, it was a weird white noodles. Seems to happen all the time to me more often than I'd like to admit. The noodles were overall good. Wish they had better quality chicken though. There's also a sit-down restaurant next door with better quality chicken. I added some sriracha to the noodles to give the noodles more flavor. They also offer a complementary thai iced tea. I didn't want any but they insisted. Will probably be back. There must be other chicken items with better quality chicken. Otherwise, there's the pho restaurant next door.

I ordered the fried chicken #46 I think . The lady was really nice to us. The chicken was really good, but then the rice was kinda meh. And there's free Thai tea too. Would come back because of the fried chicken really good!!!! .

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.