By The Sentinel
This article featured two of our On Havana Street restaurants. Staff writers: Kara Mason and Dave Perry highlighted Angry Chicken and Yum Yum Bakery.
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1930 S. Havana St. Unit 13
There’s chicken and then there is Angry Chicken. The angrier, the better.
The Korean-style fried chicken restaurant is everything that’s right with the Aurora food scene. The location itself — in an old strip mall along a bustling and diverse Havana Street — is ideal. Next door, Snowl is becoming the it-spot for boba and taiyaki, and Katsu Ramen has long been a local favorite.
Angry Chicken’s menu is easy. Pick your chicken, then pick your sauce, then pick your side. The fried chicken is made gluten free, fried with rice-flour breading.
Unlike the Southern variety, Angry Chicken is all fried fresh. The owners say they get their chicken locally, and it’s made to order.
The spicy lunch is available between 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. $12 will get you boneless chicken wings, with your choice of sauce (you can’t really go wrong here) and a side of fries.
The restaurant opened in December 2017 with a bang and lines aren’t uncommon during rush hours. Catch one of Aurora’s hottest trends on a quiet afternoon so you can leisurely savor the heat and flavor. And best? Doorbells on the table lets you be “that guy” to ring for more or water when the fire gets too hot.
— KARA MASON, Staff Writer
2680 S Havana St.
No need to keep saving for a trip to Paris for out-of-this-world pastries. A quick trip to Aurora’s K-Town neighborhood will keep you home.
While Vietnamese cuisine usually enjoys foodie adoration for generations of adaptation by French colonization, this Korean-French bakery wins hands down for improving on perfection.
Yum Yum offers a wide range of mostly sweet classics and novelties. Parisian macaroons are sublime, just-right chewy almond-flour biscuits with a not-too-sweet creme center.
In fact, the entire bakery expertly walks the line between sumptuous and saccharine.
Something you’ve never had and won’t soon give up are Korean based traditions with an astonishing French twist. Red-bean cakes never tasted like this. Impossibly light and crunchy, no amount of will power can withstand just one more bite. Likewise for something spongy and tender filled with yam paste. A puffy ball filled with what otherwise would be an unremarkable American Twinkie is a light, joyous lark of a pastry that will keep you driving back for more.
The shop offers a wide range of stunning cakes and pastries, sometimes variations on a theme, other times, totally beguiling strangers.
On the counter last week were fresh savory buns filled with potato and slurried meat, rolled in what appeared to be a crunchy Panko breadcrumb mixture. If you’re on the hunt for different, ask for them.
— DAVE PERRY, Staff Writer