Fried Chicken Friday Pollo Campero

Few foods conjure up as much mouthwatering talk as a hot and greasy piece of fried chicken. Everyone has favorites, too, from Harold’s to Table Fifty-Two. But who’s got the very best fried chicken in Chicago, and what makes that chicken great? Every other Friday, all year, we’ll be investigating a different revered fri chi place in the Chicagoland area. Thus, Fried Chicken Friday.

This week, Fri-Chi-Fri heads way, way north to Albany Park’s Pollo Campero, home to some of Guatemala’s finest fast-food fried chicken.

Last time on Fried Chicken Friday, The A.V. Club headed out to Lakeview’s Crisp, where we were decidedly underwhelmed. Korean fried chicken is, after all, about the sauce, and because of our stringent, playing-field-equalizing rules, we had to judge the fried chicken on pure chicken-ness, and leave the sauce for sporadic dipping.

Of course, this inspired some ire among our commenters, but it also inspired a little friendly “let me tell you about this chicken place I know so you numbskulls can get it right” comments. And, so, we decided to take one such commenter up on it and let him join in this week’s fun. Being of Guatemalan descent, CHIRP Radio’s Erik Roldan sang the praises of Pollo Campero, and so we drove on up to meet him in Albany Park, to see whether his claims were, in fact, true.

Well, long story short, yeah, they were. For fast-food chicken, Pollo Campero’s is really, really good. KFC and Popeyes, eat your respectively chickeny hearts out. The downside is, of course, that there are only two Pollo Campero locations in the whole damn city, but the company is expanding pretty rapidly in the United States. The company put its first U.S. restaurant in Los Angeles a few years back, and it did a million dollars in sales in just 47 days. Roldan told us that, on flights back from Guatemala, a lot of people living in Chicago are bringing back this chicken on the planes. That’s a little extreme, especially considering how much ire and hunger those people might inspire in their fellow passengers, but whatever. We’ll believe him.

Let’s get down to brass tacks. 

Seasoning: Um, so, yeah, it’s pretty good. It’s tasty solo, and it’s not too salty, which we think is a common problem in fast-food chicken. This might count toward the “intangibles” category, but the restaurant also offers a full salsa bar for dipping and self-seasoning, and all of those salsas are pretty good, considering.

Crispness: It’s pretty dang crisp. At the same time, it’s not all breading. The coating is just pure fried skin, and it doesn’t fall right off of the meat when you bite into it, which is ultra-important.

Overall taste: We sampled, of course, white and dark meats, and both kinds were super juicy, which is impressive, especially in a fried chicken breast. The A.V. Club contingent hadn’t ever actually been to Guatemala or eaten Guatemalan fried chicken before, but our guest, Roldan, assured us that it was, in fact, really good Guatemalan chicken. We had no reason to doubt him. (Incidentally, on the Crisp trip, we had two then-unnamed guests, The Hood Internet’s Steve Sleeve and tour manager/totally good dude Dan Suh. Suh is a complete Korean fried chicken connoisseur, so when he said that Crisp wasn’t good Korean fried chicken, we had no reason to doubt him there either, in addition to our own experience.)

Value: We went a little crazy with sides and options, because we wanted to taste everything, and the meal still only ran us about $8 a person. Granted, the sides are, like, beans—and beans aren’t expensive, but whatever. Cheap is cheap, especially when you walk out of there feeling incredibly satiated.

Intangibles: Here’s where the aforementioned sides and salsas come into play, and really kind of turn things toward the über-positive for Pollo Campero. Frankly, Pollo Campero’s sides are really good. Anything vaguely Guatemalan was pretty on point. The Campero Beans are just pinto beans and onions, but they’re slammin’. Yuca fries? Really good. The fried plantains were served with sour cream, which was accurate, according to Roldan. As for the “American” fare, well, the coleslaw was okay. The fries were good, albeit basic. And this thing we got called the “cruncher roll” (that we bought because it was $.99) was basically chicken bits with some sort of tomato sauce, wrapped in biscuit or phyllo dough. It sounded weird, but it was tasty enough, and for $.99 for a whole lunch, we’d be pretty happy with our purchase.

Another positive is that, weirdly enough, this Pollo Campero location has free wi-fi. It’s totally random, and typing with fried chicken fingers wouldn’t be the greatest idea of all time, but we’re kind of glad it’s available.

In the negative column, and this is super Yelp-style nit-picky, and we hate ourselves for even saying it, but when we were there, the restaurant was totally empty, albeit very clean and new-looking. There was, however, a homeless man, who was not eating, who came in, sat opposite our booth, and just stared at us while we were eating. We were there for an hour and he never left, and the staff never said anything to him. It was extremely awkward, and, yeah, it was awkward. It was cold out and everything, and you can’t fault the guy for wanting to be somewhere warm, but that shit (maybe) wouldn’t fly at a McDonald’s.

Stray observations:

• This location had not one but two “drop your business card here” contests going on at the time, neither of which seemed to be very popular. Fingers crossed for that free Super Bowl party, guys!

• The only dessert for sale at the Albany Park location was flan, despite the Pollo Campero website’s promise of Tres Leches cake. Boo!

Rating, out of 10: This is a toughie, because it is really early in the series, but man, that chicken was good. This reporter, in fact, keeps thinking about it. And that’s weird, considering how much freaking fried chicken is scheduled for future consumption this year. That’s why we’re going to go with an 8, because, yeah, it’s really good. And those Campero Beans? Yep, really good.

A little note: As we mentioned, Roldan came with us this time, and we had a really nice meal. The A.V. Club didn’t know him from Eve, and he didn’t know us, other than through our writing. But, we learned a lot about each other, and a lot about chicken. Plus, he got some more sides, so we could really try a full sampling.

Thus, we strongly encourage other readers, friends, whoever to come out with us on future trips. And, hey, if you know a place, suggest it. We have a pretty robust list right now, but there are quite a few empty spots left, and we can always be persuaded to go somewhere new.

Coming up for Fried Chicken Friday: Hienie’s in South Deering (with special guest Jacob Daneman), Army & Lou’s, Feed