We Love Food

We Love Food: El Pollito

Photo courtesy of Me

El pollito, courtesy of Me

Overall I’m inclined to agree with Carl about the crack metaphor: it’s overused, and unless you punched your mother in the face or [redacted] someone’s [redacted] and then let them [redacted] in order to get it, then NO, that chicken ISN’T like crack.

When Tom Sietsema went and checked out El Pollito in Crystal City, however, that’s exactly the comparison someone used in front of him in line. Crack, that is, not the punching your mother stuff. My darling wife and I were delighted to see this review, since the place that used to occupy this storefront looked like it had about 9 customers over the six-month period it was there. Overall we won’t frequent a restaurant that doesn’t seem to do some business – old food is just not conducive to a good dining experience.

So when we went and got some takeout there on Friday evening we were a little concerned to walk in and find the place completely empty. However the rotisseries are right there in plain view and a simpler menu like this makes it less of a concern to me than a larger menu and a closed kitchen, so we went ahead and picked up our order.

Which was simply -eh-.

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Arlington, Food and Drink, We Love Food

We Love Food: Yaku

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Nestled along Clarendon Boulevard in the Court House area, Yaku looks to be the perfect neighborhood hot spot. Two levels of glass and glowing lights, it always looks warm and inviting from the street. I live in Arlington, and have walked past Yaku almost daily since it’s conception as just an empty office space below my dream real-estate local, The Odyssey condominiums.

When it finally looked as if something was actually going to go in the space (that had stood empty since before I moved here in fall 2007), I got pretty excited. On my walk home, I ran up to check the posted licences to see what it would be. It’s the perfect location to be our new favorite go-to spot. Yaku, the signs said. Hmm… I said. That’s an odd name. A little googling, and I find that Yaku will be another restaurant from Latin Concepts, the same people who brought us places like Chi-Cha Lounge, Mate, Ceviche, and Guarapo (which is only around the corner from Yaku).

According to the Web site, “YAKU, is a “Chifa” restaurant lounge brought to you by Fraga-Rosenfeld.  Chifa is the fusion of Chinese and Peruvian cuisine developed by Chinese immigrants to Peru in the late 19th and early 20th centuries… The name YAKU means “water” in Quechua (Incan Language) and is intended to capture Asian-influenced Andean culinary styles unique to the region.” Yaku is also, says our friend wikipedia, a town located on Yaku Island, Japan. So let’s just go with Asian-Peruvian fusion, and call it interesting… Continue reading