I was out in Waipahu at lunchtime the other day, so I stopped by Jollibee to give them a try. Although this is the first USA franchise of a restaurant chain from the Philippines, you won’t find Filipino ethnic fare here: This is a Western-style fast-food place. The three major menu items they have are fried chicken, burgers, and spaghetti. This time around, I opted for the fried chicken, referred to here as “Chicken Joy”. The base plate is two pieces of chicken and one side, and from there you can upgrade to two sides, then three pieces of chicken. I got the two-piece with two sides, (#2) with mashed potatoes and buttered corn. The other options were white rice and something else I can’t remember right now. I neglected to indicate the spicy chicken option when I ordered, so I received the standard fried chicken. The service was very fast and the food was plated neatly. In addition to the gravy on the mashed potatoes, there was a little container of extra gravy for the chicken. Including the fountain drink, my meal came to $7.33 USD with sales tax.
The mashed potatoes were fine, but the gravy initially seemed overly salty. There were some small purple flecks in the potatoes, but I didn’t check to see whether they were purple potato skin bits, red onion pieces, or even red cabbage pieces. They added a texture, but no discernable flavor. Mashed potatoes and gravy get a C.
The corn was also fine, but nothing to write home about. It’s third party corn swimming in melted butter. It’s pretty hard to screw up, but also pretty hard to make exceptional. Corn gets a C.
The chicken was very good. The skin was perfectly crispy, and the meat was juicy and not dried out. I would venture a guess that they are using the Colonel’s pressure cooker technique. The flavor was well balanced. My two pieces were a drumstick and a breast. I usually dislike drumsticks, but this one was surprisingly good – no stanky dark meat nor weird gelatinous sinews. I give the chicken a B+ for flavor. My only negative reaction to the chicken was that it was tiny. The drumstick was like double the volume of the average chicken wing, and the breast was like Cornish game hen small. If anyone remembers when Zippy’s changed chicken vendors for a month late last year, it was like that tiny. If I had to rank it amongst the other purveyors of fried chicken, for flavor, I’d place it with KFC at the top, a little above Zippy’s, and well above Byron’s. It’s probably about the best I’ve experienced with regard to chicken quality (no globs of yellow fat hiding under the skin like Zippy’s) and cooking preparation. How they get the skin to that level of crispiness without the meat going dry is amazing. Both Zippy’s and Byron’s usually take the skin past GBD to “fully browned and on the verge of going black”, resulting in meat that is on the drier side.
Overall, it was a good meal, but a little light, especially considering the payout. Compared to other places, you’re getting two pieces of chicken for the same money that would bring you three significantly larger pieces elsewhere. The amount of food was probably more in line with what I should be eating, rather than a “fat American size” meal, but it would have been nice if it was priced more in line with what KFC would charge for a two-piece chicken meal, which is in the $5-6 USD range.
Recommended
$7.33 USD
Three out of four chicken munching monkeys
Next time I’ll try the spaghetti…
BTW, the mascot is creepy.
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