Chicken: You Love It

Driving through Corona, Queens with a friend, we noticed a plethora of chicken restaurants in the heavily Latino-populated area. “Man,” we thought, “Latinos love chicken”  - usually a la brasa, with crispy, golden-brown skin and all the fixin’s.

Some of the restaurants, like Pollos Mario, were colombian. Some were Ecuadorian. Many Mexican restaurants had plump little chickens hanging from their windows alongside neon signs advertising tacos and ice-cold Modelo, and El Pollo Loco restaurants often serve Mexican-inspired chicken dishes on the West Coast. And, further down in Sunnyside, there’s Pio Pio Riko - some of the best Peruvian-style rotisserie chicken we’ve eaten to the point of accidentally inducing a coma.

In Florida (and in some New Jersey cities), there’s Pollo Tropical  - a chain specializing in Caribbean-inspired grilled and rotisserie chicken often served with rice, black beans, yucca fries and sweet plantains. There’s also Chicken Kitchen - not necessarily a Latin chain, but one that’s proven popular with Latinos.

Anyway, clearly, this is a perfect opportunity for various Latinos to be competitive and vote on which national or regional chicken chain is the very best:

IN LIMA, REDISCOVERING CHICKEN [Gourmet.com]