El Pollo Loco

El Pollo Loco, undoubtedly the inspiration behind Gus Fring's chicken enterprise in Breaking Bad, is an above average fast food chain specializing in Mexican-style citrus-marinated, fire-grilled chicken. There are approximately 480 U.S. El Pollo Loco restaurants, mostly in California and the U.S. southwest. El Pollo Loco started as a chain in Mexico in 1974, but the U.S. restaurants split off into its own company in 1983 that has since developed different recipes and menus. El Pollo Loco's chicken is aggressively salted, but otherwise not bad overall. I have never had a dry piece of chicken here. They claim their recipe involves marinating whole chickens in herbs, spices, fruit juices, and garlic and then grilling them over an open flame in each store before serving the chicken in their chicken meals, burritos, salads, soups, and tacos. I find that the skin picks up flavor of concentrated chicken, a bit of citrus, with a peppery finish. I wouldn't say the chicken here is on the same level as local polloerias "Jose's Pollos" or "Pollos Maria," but those places are, of course, both more expensive and not nearly as fast. This location's staff is well-trained, as evident by the consistent results this chain gets with its grilled chicken. The people who work here are also friendly and welcoming: I feel they go out of their way to provide good customer service, whether it be forcing a smile while taking an order, or walking over to my table to give my toddler daughter a sheet of stickers. My recent "Chicken Taco Al Carbon" from this location was a good "fast food" taco. Featuring two small white corn tortillas, the heavily-seasoned chicken is tender and not at all unpleasant, and accompanied by onions and cilantro. I felt it could benefit from some additional "oomph," so I grabbed a bit of the hottest sauce available from El Pollo Loco's self-serve salsa bar, but was disappointed that it was "all heat" without any nuanced flavor. My taco was better without it. At just 160-calories and $1.89, I'm not complaining, as it checked all the boxes of fast, cheap, healthy, and reasonably tasty.

We didn't get our order right. We asked only for green sauce and cilantro. We went in and the person attending us, Told us that she did give us what we asked but we didn't. She then gave us a green sauce. Not cilantro. The order for our chicken was raw and not all 8 pieces. We paid full price. Very disappointed.