Chanchow Eats: Z is for Zankou

In an unassuming strip mall in Hollywood, at the corner of Sunset and Normandie, sits Zankou Chicken. The family-owned restaurant opened in LA in 1984, after the original Zankou location closed in Beirut after twenty some years of operation. Since 1984, Zankou Chicken has fed those newly initiated to LA like myself, as well as native and long time Angelenos.

I can't say if everything on the menu is great because I've only had one thing: the 1/4 roasted chicken, white meat, which comes with a small but potent cup of garlic sauce on the side. The chicken is just right, skin crispy and meat juicy. But the star attraction is the garlic sauce. As food critic Jonathan Gold writes, "Nothing on heaven or on Earth may be as severe as the Armenian garlic sauce served at Zankou Chicken, a fierce, blinding-white paste the texture of pureed horseradish that scents your car, sears the back of your throat, and whose powerful aroma can stay in your head- and you car-- for days... Go ahead, Ultra Brite; go ahead, Lavoris; go ahead, CarFreshener: My money's on the sauce. It's also good with chicken."