Here in Manila for a week of work and stopped by to have me some Chicken Joy. The secret is to add a dash of hot sauce in the gravy. The extra spiciness makes all the difference. Best eaten with rice :)
Pineapple juice. A sure sign you’re in a Pinoy resto.
I can't be the only one intrigued by the Jolly Spaghetti...
The oil they fry this stuff in tastes like that old hydrogenated oil (trans fat) - way to greasy tasting, and suspiciously crunchy dry. And more MSG than even KFC on everything especially the fries. A bit like
jacked up version of Popeyes chicken. I’m so not a fan.
I travel in the Philippines on business; love the chicken at Jollibees. And this sentiment comes from a Popeyes fanatic. Two different, but great,
takes on fast-food fried chicken.
The spaghetti, however, at Jollibees is just awful. Not merely bad, but repellent.
You have been warned.....
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Chang Li Supermarket Inc., 2079 Benedict Ave, Bronx, NY 10462 has the banana ketchup FYI
@Somewhere in NYV
I've obtained Jufran Banana Sauce (ketchup made from bananas) at Walmart in Baltimore.
I ashamed to call this chain representative of real Filipino fare (palabok, sweet spaghetti, _silogs) even at minimum. The chicken is good, I grant you, but everything else is overly processed, the taste singularly overly sweet, and the breakfast silogs rubbery dry and flavorless. True, it's cheap, so is the quality.
McDonald's was ready to move to the Philippines long before Jollibees was even conceptualized. The issue was quality control. Meat was probably the biggest issue. They insisted on bring in the original breeding stock and it would have been three to four years before a store could open. There were several other issues. On a similar note, it took several years and millions of dollars to build a tunnel from Hong Kong Island to the mainland. It was a topic of news for all those years. When the day came for its grand opening a huge crowd was expected. There was no crowd. That same day the first McDonald's was opened in Hong Kong and the line to get in was literally miles long. Crowd control police were pulled from the tunnel opening to control the crowds at McDonalds.
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Is that a drumstick in the first photo? The Franken-sizing of chicken parts has contributed to the poor taste and texture of chickens. I recall a chicken company or industry rep saying to NYT a while back that the ideal chicken would be one with multiple (meaning more than two) wings. I still shudder imagining how that might look and wonder if that goal has been achieved.
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I used to pass a location on Beverly Boulevard in LA every time I drove downtown...
One day I decided to try it...
I like fast food, and I'm sure if I grew up in the Philippines I'd enjoy it.
But I didn't. It's just not good.
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Based on this article, I sought out the Jollibees in South San Francisco. Too greasy for my taste, but the great thing is that my foray took me into a Philippine/Chinese neighborhood which I never knew was there. I discovered the Oriental-Manila Market, with all its great ethic foods and killer prices. Mission accomplished!
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@joe You should go to Milpitas Union City and San Jose, specifically union landing shopping center or in SJ they have full-fledged ethnic enclaves with the best food in the Bay imo outside of the city
as craggy as a thunderhead. is this a good thing? had to look up thunderhead....
Ten years (or close) already in Queens, but you only write it up now that it's in Manhattan? I thought this was supposed to be the populist restaurant column. Tsk tsk.
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@Suzanne Fass March 11, 2009 they ran a review:
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/dining/reviews/11brief-002.html
A quick search on the site...
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@bg
Thank you. I stand corrected. I'd forgotten about Dining Briefs.
Where do the birds come from and how are they raised?
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@ jayno Virginia
If you knew, you would probably never partake of this dish. Like an old saying, that people who love sausage should never watch it being made.
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I love Jollibee. First thing i eat whenever i visit family in the Philippines. It's a joy to finally have it in Manhattan. It's good but I was a tad disappointed that they seem to have tempered the seasoning level a bit. Not as much umami as the chickenjoy you'd be served in the Philippines.
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One of the numerous pleasures of having a Filipino wife. I first had Chickenjoy in Hong Kong. Now we have 3 Jollibees within 15 minutes of our home - not that we frequent them, but when we do have an urge for fried chicken, in my opinion this is the best fast-food version available in the United States.
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Why do Americans eat like they have free healthcare?
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@Zoe I'd imagine it's for the same reason San Franciscans pay such absurd amounts of money for housing - because they can.
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Ok but fried food has consequences. Try again.
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@Zoe Everything has consequences. But not everything like fried chicken is eaten all the time, every day. At least not by all Americans; I'll bet not YOU, ever ;-). People want and need comfort and turn to food, consequences be damned. If you want people to eat better, there are so many ways one can work on fixing the many broken American systems. That's much more productive than telling people they are eating wrong.
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If this is the direction the Food section is headed, I expect Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen to get a well-deserved NYTimes Critic's Pick as a fine representation of Southern cuisine in the near future.
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@K. Woo NYT isn't the only one - perhaps you missed Bourdain gushing about Chickenjoy and Jolly Spaghetti on his last trip to Manila.
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@K. Woo, this is hungry city not pete wells.
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@fernando Wells reviewed pizza, no difference.
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Yesssssssss!!!
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A wonderfully warm praise of Jollibee and some of its Filipino offerings.
A question I would ask, how do the guests consume the spaghetti and rice noodles with all the ingredients in them?
As to the Chickenjoy, I hope it is as good as the regrettably extinct Extra-crispy of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
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@Tuvw Xyz Just found out that KFC extra crispy is the only style available in Mumbai. I still prefer the original recipe.
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