23706 El Toro Road
Lake Forest, CA 92630
The hot chicken trend shows no signs of slowing down. Every time I log on to Instagram, it seems there's a new Nashville-style chicken restaurant that catches my eye. I keep thinking this chicken craze will fizzle out, like the poke, frozen yogurt, and bacon fads before it, but it hasn't seemed to happen yet, and we are going on nearly four years strong of a continuous stream of hot chicken restaurants popping up. The latest one I've tried is Crimson Coward in Lake Forest.
The man behind Crimson Coward is Ali Hijazi. Before opening his first location in Downey three years ago, he took several trips to Nashville to perfect the rub for his chicken. It's a secret, of course, but they have let it slip out that it contains 16 primary and 32 secondary spices. They apply the rub to the chicken 24 hours in advance, so all the flavors can meld. Their chicken is also worth noting. They use hormone-free chicken from a farmer with whom they have a direct relationship.
People seem to have taken notice of Crimson Coward. Even with new hot chicken restaurants opening almost daily at this point, they now have four locations open. Their Downey location was first, then Artesia, Lake Forest, and in April of this year, they cut the ribbon at their Long Beach store. Each of these locations possesses at least a four-star rating on Yelp, and they were named one of the top 20 best-fried chicken places by USA Today. So it's no wonder that they have such an aggressive expansion plan in place, as they are eying going national by the end of this year.
My friend Owen from work is a chicken sandwich fiend. He always seems to know all the new places sprouting up. He knew about Crimson Coward way before I did. He suggested that we meet up here on a recent Thursday. We arrived at the Lake Forest location at 11, right when they opened. This Crimson Coward is situated in the Arbor shopping plaza, which is also home to Lucile's BBQ, Crumbl Cookies, Habit Burger, and other eateries.
The menu here features sandwiches, tenders, wings, and sides, including fries, potato salad, fried pickles, slaw, and a Crimson onion; if you've ever had an Awesome Blossom or Bloomin' Onion, it's basically that. There are five levels of heat that you can choose from. On my maiden visit to a hot chicken restaurant, I generally go for the middle of the heat levels. Let's see how this worked out for us on this trip.
Owen and I got the same sandwich, The Crimson ($14). He got his sandwich country style, which meant with no heat, and I got mine with the medium spice level, described on their menu as a slap of heat, which was right on the mark. Their namesake sandwich comes with coleslaw, pickles, and crimson sauce, all on a brioche bun. The crimson sauce is best described as a spicy mayo. I liked it better than others I have had. The flavor was good, but what made it for me was that the texture was a little thicker than their competitors, so it stuck to the chicken better. The chicken is pounded flatter than others, which led to it overhanging the bun quite. I treated the excess chicken as a chicken tender and dipped it into the sauce. The chicken was moist, and the medium spice level might have been perfect for me, as the heat grew as I ate this. The bun did an excellent job keeping everything together. I also got a single Chicken Tender ($3.75) which I did not snap a picture of because I was pretty hungry. I got this extra tender hot, one spice level up from my sandwich. It was hot but not unbearable. I liked the crunchiness of the tender, and the inside was tender.
For a side, I got their Crimson Onion ($9). This version of an awesome blossom was anything but awesome. This was way over-fried and not seasoned correctly. Most bites I had tasted like burnt onions, especially the inside pieces. Their ranch is good, but it could not save this side item. I left most of this behind.
I've been a real Potato Salad ($4) addict lately, so I gave the one here at Crimson Coward a try. This version is what I'd consider to be more of the chunky variety instead of my preferred version, a more smooth and creamy adaptation. It was good with a little of what I assume is their spicy rub sprinkled on top. The first bite I had was rather hot due to the rub, but the rest of this was mellow. Not an awful potato salad, but nothing that blew me away either.
Owen got his potato intake by getting these Crimson Fries ($5). I've noticed that they usually give you a lot when you get fries at a hot chicken restaurant. This was the case here. Way more fries than what Owen could eat. They were fried crisp, seasoned ever so slightly, and came out nice and hot.
I liked Crimson Coward, even with the slight hiccup from the overcooked onion. Their chicken was good, and writing this review kind of got my juices flowing to make another return visit soon. That said, I'm still looking for the hot chicken spot that will dethrone my favorites to this point; Crack Shack, Cluck Kitchen, and Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken. Crimson Coward was close but just missed getting into this top three. Their prices seemed a little high, but when I cross-checked them with their competitors, they were priced the same. The service was satisfactory, as I believe it was the franchise owners that served us and prepared our meals. Thanks for joining me, Owen, I'm sure it will be no time before another hot chicken restaurant opens, and we will try it.
Out of five nests (because the crimson sunbird is the national bird of Singapore, and they build their nests in acacia trees), five being best to zero being worst, Crimson Coward gets 3 nests.
For more information about Crimson Coward, head to their website by clicking here:https://www.crimsoncoward.com/
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