Puradak – Closed

From the moment its name was announced, Orange Blossom – The Oriental Kitchen was a weird addition to Buena Park’s shopping and dining destination The Source, and as of 2024, it was replaced by Puradak (Korean for “pure chicken”). As the first U.S. location of a South Korean chain, the third-floor Puradak focused on a differentiated version of Korean fried chicken from its first-floor rival Pelicana Chicken. At Puradak, chicken was battered and oven-baked before being fried, rather than being double-fried. The result was very moist and tender meat, with a crispy but not insanely crispy exterior.

We tried most of Puradak’s core offerings, including regular wings, boneless wings, and chicken sandwiches, as well as several of their unique sauces: a Mabulro three-flame spicy red sauce with soy and garlic, which tasted nice but wasn’t very spicy at all, with an odd crouton garnish; a non-spicy black garlic and soy Black Aglio, which was a more powerful version of the common soy-garlic found at other Korean fried chicken places, garnished with garlic chips; and a creamy chili mayo drizzled rather than tossed on one of our sandwiches, while the other one was “classic” and plain. Each wing order came with a side such as radishes or fries; the sandwiches didn’t.

Each of us enjoyed but didn’t love everything we tried, including the fries and radishes that were included with the wings. Puradak’s sandwiches were around twice the size and price of Chick-Fil-A’s – more meat, larger (similarly soft) buns, more toppings – but on flavor, we’d pick the latter’s regular and spiced versions over these.