Opening: Pardo's Chicken
We were just told that Pardo's Chicken, a rotisserie chicken chain from Peru, will be opening in Venivici's old spot in the Gables sometime soon. The only current U.S. location is in New York City, and we found quite a few reviews for it:
• From Goodies First:
We tried half a chicken brasa and half parrillero, the brasa being rotisserie style and parrillero a grilled boneless fillet. Who knows what the advertised 14 secret ingredients were, but salt is definitely one of them.... I preferred the classic spit-roasted version, both styles were juicy throughout, no cottony white meat. There are quite a few sides to choose from, we got yuquitas, commonly called yucca fries, which are rapidly becoming one of my favorite fried starches, and tacu tacu, which are croquettes of beans and rice mashed together into fat little logs. Mayonnaise and a creamy aji sauce using yellow South American chiles come on the side. Despite the cute name, tacu tacu was kind of dull, I would’ve expected more pizzazz from a fritter. I might try canario beans instead if I went again.
• From Chowhound:
While I only room enough for a quarter chicken, I was extremely impressed. The skin was super crispy and flavorful the spicing permeated every nook of the chicken. Moreover, they give you two accompanying sauces, one of which, the green peppercorn, is superb (the other, homemade mayonaise, paled in comparison).Those are some pretty glowing reviews. (And we didn't just pick the good ones -- there wasn't much negative that we found about the restaurant.) So here's hoping it'll do well around here.
Pardo's Chicken [Official Site]
Pardo's [MenuPages]
Pardo's [Goodies First]
Pardo's chicken - Just as good as now-defunct El Pollo [Chowhound]
Photo: Flickr
