El Pollo Real

El Pollo Real saved the evening.

There is this place near EPR that, according to their name, serves Italian and Mexican food. I was intrigued and decided to pay them a visit. It turned out to be a big fiasco.

We were hungry and looked for the closest place to get a bite. Just across the street appeared EPR.

The chicken is good and flavorful. The sides are limited to rice and beans and OK in flavor.

Service is nice and helpful. Ahh in Tue, Wed, and Thur they have a special buy 1 full chicken get 1/2 free (only to go)

Why the 4 stars then???  Just because they were there when I needed them the most.

It seems that if you have been to one pollo a la parrilla place, you have been to all.

EPR, good chicken  and service if in the hood.

This place cooks Mexican grilled Chicken, Sinaloa style, which I'm not sure what it means. But you can see the guys there in the kitchen working those grills. I was surprised that it was so busy.

Last year I went to Mexico after many years of not going and the one place that used to have this type of grilled chicken was different and their food sucked. I was so sad. I found this place totally by accident because we were stuck in traffic in Little Village area and we were hungry. I was so pleasantly surprised.

Food:
You basically pick a whole chicken or half a chicken, either "natural" style or "adobado" which means it has seasonings. I don't see much of a difference, but I like both. Also you order if you want Chicken only or if you want the extras too. The extras are usually two types of salsas, tortillas, onions that are pickled, rice, beans (I think), a grilled jalapeno.

I have tried their homemade Flan and I think it is very good too.

They also have specials on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday where if you order a whole chicken with sides you get half a chicken free, something like that.

Location:
Tag Team needed! It is hard to find parking around here so make sure you have a partner when coming here. One who can stay in the car and hopefully find parking and one who can go in and order or pick up the order.

It is basically a small place, not really a restaurant, you can eat at  the counters at the sides of the wall I guess, but people are usually just there waiting for the chicken. It's really a pick-up location. They have delivery also.

Cons:
Well, I really have no cons, but maybe there are things you should look out for.
I think their English might be limited, I have only ever spoken Spanish here and that's all I have heard spoken here, so I don't know how well their English is here.

Also, this place has always been busy, even when I went on Monday to get the special, it was busy!

As a result of them being busy, they might run out of either one type of chicken or another (natural or seasoned) and sometimes they might run out of other things, like the flan. They are fast at making the order because they are practically cooking for future customers that will arrive, but even then, sometimes they run out and they will tell you if you will have to wait, maybe like 20 minutes.

Also, we have been here a few times, but I think there is one cook here whom I don't like how he cooks the chicken so much, it seems to happen when he is the only cooking at the grills and I think he works with the heat too high, so the chicken gets more charred on the outside. That only happened a couple of times, but my mom noticed it too. The other guys are good though.

Other than that, I really like this place and I'm so happy I don't have to go to Mexico to find this type of chicken again! Yay!