Chicken Warriors Brings Bold Korean Flavors to Carrollton

Chicken Warriors, a K-pop-inspired Korean-fried chicken joint, recently opened in Carrollton. The concept is another addition to the expanding portfolio of restaurateur Brian Chong. Recently we wrote about Chong’s Korean barbecue spot Moodaepo, also in Carrollton.

We dropped by Chicken Warriors for a visit. As soon as we stepped through the door, we were greeted by Chong, whom we recognized from his picture in the Moodaepo article. He didn’t know we were with the Observer, yet he still took a moment during his phone call to stand and warmly welcome us.
Little things like this make it easy to see why Chong was known as the unofficial mayor of Koreatown back in his Los Angeles days.

Chicken Warriors has, obviously, a chicken-centric menu. You can choose between K-style, traditional soft Korean-style batter, or extra crunchy; whole birds (pieced up), wings, tenders, popcorn chicken and boneless are all options here.

Iron cast dishes (like chicken feet), soups (mussel-clam soup, bean sprouts stewed chicken soup), burgers and an array of side dishes such as kimchi fried rice and volcano steamed egg are also on the menu. Chong roasts his own beans for the coffee bar and serves beer as well.

Breaking Bad’s Mike Ehrmantraut once famously told Walter White, “No more half-measures.” Speaking of, did you hear Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul were at the Total Wine off North Central Expressway a few weeks ago? But yeah, no half-measures for us on this day at Chicken Warriors. Give us the whole bird ($26).

We opted for the K-boom pepper flavor, K-style. Battered to perfection, this saucy, sweetly glazed chicken comes with a genuine kick from the Cheongyang chili peppers (similar to serrano peppers but more flavorful). Other flavors include cream onion, spicy galbi, honey garlic, K-spicy, soy garlic and roasted habanero.

We also tried a mix of wings, for a sample of all the flavors. The snow onion wings are such a great mix of flavors, but the honey garlic wings were the favorite at the table.
For a side, we went with an order of cheese mochi balls. You wouldn’t know by looking at them, but these addictive spheres of rice flour are permeated with rich cheesy flavor.
For our second side, we chose snow onion rings. These were some of the better onion rings we’ve had in recent memory. They're subtly sweet and sheathed in a mildly spicy batter, and it's no surprise this is the most popular side on the Chicken Warriors menu.

The dining area of Chicken Warriors isn’t as vivid and intense as Moodaepo’s (few are), but still, the K-pop vibe remains prevalent throughout.

The associate we placed our order with said his preferred dessert on the menu was the rainbow crepe cake, so we rolled with that. True to the name, this eye-catching, totally Instagrammable slice of crepe cake was topped with cream, blueberries and strawberries.

We also tried the mochi doughnuts, which had that signature soft bounce-back with each bite.
They have these crazy birds at each table. Give one a squeeze and a loud squawk lets the staff know you need something.

We spoke to Chong on the way out and he mentioned that a streamlined to-go system is in the offing, when customers and third-party delivery services will be able to quickly slip in and snag their orders.

Chicken Warriors, 1060 W. Frankford Road, Carrollton. Sunday – Wednesday, 5 p.m. – midnight; Thursday – Saturday, 5 p.m. –2 a.m. Closed Tuesdays.