I've been a big fan of Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo's Animal since it opened. They've mastered inventive dishes using many parts of the animal most restaurants don't, such as beef tendon chips, pig tails, veal brains, beef heart, you get the picture. So when they opened a seafood focused restaurant down the road, I wasn't as excited. Seafood? Anyone can do seafood. It took an invitation from Urban Spoon to get me to finally try Son of a Gun.

It has an appropriate nautical theme with giant fish hung on the wall, high ceilings and a lot of light from windows facing 3rd Street.

A great snack to sample while perusing the menu are the freshly seasoned potato chips with zesty pimento cheese.

You need to dive in shortly after to the fish section of the menu and if you're still in the mood for chips, the lemonfish poke is a good idea. Sunchokes are crisped and placed on top of the citrus-laden poke, served with black radish escabeche. Maybe I would have enjoyed this more if we didn't start with the chips and cheese. It felt too chippy and not fishy enough.

The shrimp toast was sinfully delicious. The toasted bread oozes butter and the crisp shrimp has a crispy sriracha mayo that is creamy and all together decadent. 

If you need to feel virtuous again, try one of the seasonal salads like the heirloom tomato, kalamata, beet and feta melange. Beautiful and tasty.

If you're ready for more sinning, the light, but crisp fish and chips will put you back into a nautical state of mind.

I'm just beating around the bush though, prepping for the main attraction. It turns out the featured dish at Son of a Gun isn't seafood at all. It's the fried chicken sandwich. I can honestly say it's been decades since I've uttered those words in a restaurant. If I ever have, it was in a drive thru and I was shouting to my parents from the back seat.

This sandwich puts all others to shame. First there's the homemade brioche buns. Yeah, they didn't skimp. Then there's the spicy bread and butter pickle slaw. I love anything that's been pickled so I was in on this, big time. I even enjoyed the jalapeños and onions in here because they were sweet and crunchy and mingled well with a special spicy aioli. This is really quite a fabulous compilation of ingredients. I don't think mere mortals can launch this monstrosity in their mouth so I deconstructed mine and was quite pleased.

Light seafood fare, Son of a Gun is not, but memorable and tasty it definitely is.

Thanks to Urban Spoon for finally getting me to Son of a Gun. If you want to follow all of my reviews on Urban Spoon, just click here.

Son of a Gun Restaurant
8370 W. 3rd St.
Los Angeles, CA
323.782.9033