Our exploring this weekend took us to a small fishing village in Mexico. Although it’s still a fishing village, Puerto Penasco has grown into a tourist resort town with towering condos and fancy restaurants. Our first trip there was at the end of March. I had asked our realtor, who owns a condo there, where we should eat. He told us his family’s very favorite restaurant was Pollo Lucas for chicken, rice and beans.
That didn’t sound exciting to me, I was on a quest for fresh seafood. So we skipped Pollo Lucas last trip. I remembered it this time and thought, “If it’s his family’s most favorite, maybe we should give it a try.”
The menu is simple: whole chicken, half chicken or quarter chicken. Chicken comes with garnishes of shredded cabbage, onions and home-made tortillas and salsa. Plus rice and beans for 180 pesos or nine dollars for the full chicken meal. That sounds wild right? Maybe I’m off the price for a few dollars.
My husband insisted on the full chicken, while I said we only needed a half. Boy, am I glad he insisted! We got about three meals plus snacks out of the best chicken I’ve tasted in my life! Juicy charbroiled chicken like I’ve never had before.
The beans, rice, tortillas and salsa were unbelievable, too.
We shared a table with a Mexican family of several generations and took a ton of food home.
Yes, we’ll be back. This is at the top of our list for favorite restaurants in our new beach vacation town. Talk about winner winner chicken dinner!
What restaurants have you been to that compare to this find in Mexico? What’s the best chicken you’ve ever had?
I bet that smelled AMAZING.
It did! I’m thinking of putting chicken on our BBQ today — even though I know it won’t be as good.
There is nothing like the smell of barbeque chicken.
It was incredible!!!
I am not sure I could trade a good seafood dinner for chicken, but glad you liked it. It does look delicious.
I managed to squeeze in shrimp tacos the next day.
Oh wow so glad you had a wonderful meal and that your husband ordered extra haha.
It was such an interesting authentic place! Food was amazing, too. I wish we had brought enough to bring home to the States!
Yeah I’m sure it tasted even better since it was authentic. Sad you couldn’t bring any back with you!
But we will be back!
Nandos, a South African chain does similar chicken too.
Looks awesome!! Best chicken I ever had was at Nomad, this now closed restaurant we went for my 50th, I can’t quite explain what made it so good, I guess it was three different preparations of the one chicken, so the specific part was highlighted brilliantly…to call it a roast chicken would be a disservice
Almost hate to ask but wondering how it compared to El Pollo Loco, the So Cal Chicken chain.
There was no comparison. Same basic menu but the chicken was 100 times better. The rice and beans were delicious too.