Pollo Inka Express — Restaurant in Hawaiian Gardens

Put the Inka on the frying line

Pollo Inka Express is the new tenant of the space that was long occupied by Alberto's Mexican Food. Being accustomed to the ripped upholstery, older than dirt arcade machine & the less than clean windows, I was shocked to see the bright & shiny interior of Pollo Inka Express. Having completed a recent shopping trip to the 99 Cent Only Store across the street, I was game to give Pollo Inka Express a try.

I knew I had to order the pollo a la brasa & the saltado

1/2 pollo a la brasa (2 sides w/ cilantro soup)- Breast, leg, thigh & wing with my sides being cilantro rice & steamed veggies. The main event? That cilantro rice! Perfectly seasoned with just enough of a kick to please those that prefer spicy food, while not alienating those that like things mild. The chicken was good & tender, but I'd remiss if I didn't say I prefer El Pollo Loco. The steamed veggies, consisting of cauliflower, broccoli, corn, peas & carrots were satisfactory. The cilantro soup, while good, wasn't served piping hot. It was a tad hotter than lukewarm. Bits of chunky chicken, rice and other ingredients were pleasing to the palate, but I would've been more satisfied had the soup been the correct temperature. The 1/2 pollo a la brasa proved quite a hefty meal.

Saltado de pollo (w/ white rice & cilantro soup)- Carb city, baby! Forget feeling hungry after a go with stir-fried French fries & rice. Oh, and let's not forget about the thick cuts of chicken interspersed therein. I found the fried chicken much more flavorful then the rotisserie. Next time, I'm going lomo saltado for the win

Before you dig in, don't forget the aji (green hot sauce). Put that beezy on everything! It's that good!

In addition to pollo a la brasa & the saltados, Pollo Inka Express' menu offers chaufas (fried rice), vainitas (stir fried green beans), tallarines saltados (spaghetti stir fry), salad, sandwiches & salchipapas (fries & hot dogs with ketchup, homemade tartar sauce & spicy mustard).

Service was good. The cashier taking my order was friendly & quick with recommendations. Wait time was reasonable, considering how busy the restaurant was, which also has a drive-thru. Ample seating, made up of booths and tables.

Parking is in a private lot, which used to be anchored by Walmart Neighborhood Market.

I thinka I wanna Inka! Pollo Inka Express will be a busy new eatery in Hawaiian Gardens. The food's great, the prices reasonable & the venue is a lot more welcoming than the predecessor . I know my next visit will have me vanquishing an order of lomo saltado &, perhaps, their chaufas de pollo.

Highly...

Update as of Oct. 20, 2024

As a loyal customer, I’m very disappointed with this place. They deliver decent and tasty food, but the service is not up to par. Several times when I ate at this location, we’ve had to ask one of the workers to fix the order because we would always order a whole chicken combo and get nothing but dark meat. They would fix it on the spot but I shouldn’t have to tell them to fix this if it was done right. Then today, October 20, 2024, we walked in the store and ordered a whole chicken meal as well as a half chicken meal to go. I asked the cashier if the whole chicken would come with breast meat, and she stated yes. Mind you, we come all the way from Whittier as we are, again, loyal to this establishment because of their good food. We got home and find out that we get four legs on our whole chicken order. I was pretty upset about this because again, I always have to bring it to their attention to fix it, and hoping that walking to place the order would ensure that I would get breast meat, but find out after getting home I didn’t. I called and spoke to the lady that helped us and she says that they ran out of white meat. I said why didn’t you tell us that rather than just give us dark meat and send us on our way. Meanwhile, they did have several chickens roasting and we could’ve waited for that instead they pull that fast one again and just give dark meat and not say anything about running out of white meat. I said well she should’ve told us that and give us an extra piece or two and she says oh we can’t do that. Come on guys, give us options then or tell us it’ll be a little longer because white meat is not available. I gave two because the clean and the food is good.

I like the fact that I don’t have to drive to the South Bay to enjoy inexpensive, delicious, Peruvian food. Unlike the other locations, the menu is pretty standard to what you’ll see at a Peruvian restaurant minus some of their seas food favorites. At their bigger locations, they have a variety of other seafood dishes I love that highlight as some of their best. However, the express does have...

Going to Pollo Inka for so many years as well as always recommending this place to many friends and catering food from here for my daughters birthday which i was happy with actually. I was shocked when i dined in here recently.

The teenagers employed here pretty much gave me reasons not to dine here ever again. First off the dining area like tables and chairs are dated and shows bad signs of wear. The restroom fixtures are falling apart and were not stocked properly and cleaned.

As a big fan of their soup I ordered an extra one for our the birthday girl who was now coming for her first time. Unfortunately i was forced to wait. So i walked up to the counter to investigate and asked why does it take so long to after i bought an additional soup for my daughter after liking her sip of it. I asked somebody else at the counter and that person right away reached down under the counter to hand me one that were stored all along for fast serving.

Sitting close to the counter i soon observed that the person who failed to hand me the soup right away turned out to be an older young male adult who was the person in charge. To me i wondered why he found it okay for me to...