El Pollo Real- Pollo Asado al Carbon in Prospect Heights

Mr. Maki and I tried El Pollo Real this past week. It's been there a couple of months; the location at Wolf Rd. and Camp McDonald Rd. used to be a combination doughnut/sub shop. Before it switched over, we had tried the doughnuts there and they basically seemed to be day-old doughnuts from Dunkin' Donuts, so we never went back. We were quite hopeful when it turned into a Mexican restaurant.

We finally got around to trying it, for dinner on Wednesday and were mostly disappointed. The service was very nice, the restaurant was clean. The food was lacking, though. We ordered a 1/4 chicken of dark meat and a 1/4 chicken of white meat and shared between the two of us. For $8.49 and $8.99, respectively, they each came with two sides and included tortillas. For sides, I picked potato salad and cebollitas; Mr. Maki picked mashed potatoes and garlic bread.

First impression was that the amount of chicken was really disappointing. The pieces were quite small; I know there are bigger chickens out there for a reasonable price- look at the rotisserie chicken at Costco- it's huge and for half the price of what El Pollo Real wanted for a 1/4 chicken. I know a small restaurant doesn't have the buying power of a huge warehouse store, but the size was shockingly small. The flavor was nothing special...about as seasoned as one of those Costco rotisserie chickens.

The cebollitas were good, but the potato salad was from a food service, the mashed potatoes out of a box and the garlic bread was from a package.

For comparison, these pictures are from El Pollo Rey, a similar restaurant in Kansas City, KS that I went to last December.




For $6.50, you get half of a decent-sized chicken, pickled red onions and fresh tortillas (made within the last couple hours at the torterilla down the block). Sides of rice and beans are very inexpensive- maybe 50 cents or a dollar each. The avocados are extra. The chicken has been marinated and seasoned and it's so flavorful and juicy. BuddyRoadhouse, who was there with me, has better pictures- I only took these pictures because I wanted to get to the eatin'!!

El Pollo Real
1 S. Wolf Rd.
Prospect Heights IL 60070
847-813-9733

El Pollo Rey
1101 Kansas Avenue
Kansas City, KS 66105-1225
(913) 371-4243