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Ai No Pizza (Love Pizza) – Love Letter By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman It started last week. We were eating at Feedable (a Korean buffet by my house) in honor of Steve’s birthday. Leaving the restaurant moderately drunk and well fed; we decided to hangout and smoke a cigarette before going back home. While loitering in the parking lot, I noticed something very interesting there. The words PIZZA & CHICKEN shined brightly through orange channel letters. Though pizza and chicken is quite common in the LA area, I was quite surprised to find that the rest of the sign was composed of Korean wording. My curiosity was immediately piqued.
I spent the whole week wondering about that restaurant. I figured the place had to be decent, since pizza isn’t really a common Korean dish. Or that the owner is just insane and thinks he makes good pizza. My curiosity began to consume me; I had to try out the Korean chicken and pizza soon. After rounding up part of the RwN staff and Ron’s brother we headed out to Love Letter Pizza & Chicken (the official name) in Rowland Heights. The first thing I learned about Love Letter is the fact that it’s actually a chain restaurant. They have several branches in Southern California, 3 in Virginia, 2 in Georgia, 1 in Chicago, and 1 in New York. This immediately gave me a lot of confidence regarding the food, especially knowing that they have branches in the south. Sadly, I must mention that the restaurant had 2 things going on with it that I normally hate. The place is not only very dim, but very small. I’ve always been bothered by dim restaurants, since I feel as if the management has something to hide. I can understand that some people like it dim as a sort of mood lighting, but those people are probably with someone that’s homely and/or fat. While I can let the lighting aspect go, I was very bothered by how cramped our booth was. However, in Love Letter’s defense, we were trying to cram: the Basilio brothers, Steve, and I into one tiny booth.
These 2 things can easily be ignored because the food is awesome. The meal starts with a shredded cabbage salad topped with corn and Thousand Island dressing and garnished with Sriracha (Thai chili sauce), it was very tasty and very refreshing on a hot summer night. Their flagship item there is the sweet potato pizza; which I was a little apprehensive getting at first. However, my eyes have been opened and in reality sweet potato isn’t very different from pineapple as a pizza topping. The sweet potato was complimented by other toppings such as: ham, onions, sausage, pineapple and corn. They go pretty light on the tomato sauce and use a generous amount of cheese on each pizza (which I actually prefer). The pizzas are more along the lines of New York street style pizza, except for the fact that the slices aren’t as big as your head. I’ll take the time to note that there was also a couple other types of pizzas on their menu including: bulgogi (Korean barbequed short ribs) and a pretty standard supreme pizza; they also have the standard selection of toppings, in case none of the other 3 strike your fancy.
Along with our pizza we also got 2 orders of chicken. We opted to get a whole chicken, but there are also wings and chicken strips available there too. One thing I will warn you about is that the whole chickens are cut “the Asian way.” Meaning there’s a lot of stuff you may not be used to that are still attached to the chicken like the tailbone that was hanging off of my thigh piece. We got the regular fried chicken and the sweet and mild garlic chicken. The fried chicken was very fresh and most likely fried to order. The breading is a little sweet and had the hint of sweet potato and/or banana. While Ron complained that the chicken wasn’t sweet enough, I could have actually done with a more savory breading batter (but I guess you can’t please everyone). The garlic chicken was very saucy and very sticky. I was a bit shocked to find that I had to eat it with chopsticks as opposed to a knife and fork, though I made the entire situation moot by just ripping into my chicken with my bare hands. The sauce itself can best be described as a Korean’s take on BBQ sauce. It’s sweet and very garlicky with a creeping spiciness. It’s very good, but be sure you don’t have a date or an important client meeting after you eat it as I found myself burping up the subtle taste and smell of garlic the next morning. The prices there are pretty fair. We got dinner for 4 for less than $10 a person (which is pretty good for eating out in Southern California). They’re currently running a grand opening special of buy 1 whole chicken and get any other menu item for 50% and I noticed quite a few combos and specials in their menu and along the walls. I’m sure the bill is going to be much higher on the return visit, since they’re in the process of getting their liquor license (leaving me to settle for soda and pizza, like it was some 10 year old’s birthday party). I’m pretty sure that I’ll be going there near weekly as soon as they get their beer taps going. Especially since there’s a bunch of other items on the menu that I want to try; most of them being their appetizers and finger foods such as: sweet potato fries, mozzarella sticks and their cheesy corn dish (which looks like corn & cheese covered in Korean spices). If you’re looking for a new type of Korean fusion food that goes beyond bulgogi tacos being served from a lunch truck, I highly recommend this place.
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