El Pollo Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in New York

Let me start by saying that I am a medical professional and what I experienced from eating the food from this restaurant is criminal!!! I work pretty close to the restaurant and my coworker, and I decided to order from a new place. My parents are Dominican and Puerto Rican so I was anxious to try the food as I was tired of eating sandwiches for lunch. My coworker ordered stewed beef and yellow rice while I ordered a mofongo de chicharrones. We ordered our food around 1 pm and did not receive it till about 2:14 pm which was a disappointed but none the less it was cheap, and it seemed like a nice amount of food. I opened my container of mofongo, and I could clearly see that it was shredded pernil and not the chicharrones that I asked for but did not bother calling them back to bring me what I actually asked for as we waited so long to begin with. As I tasted the mofongo, it left little to be desired and borderline gross. The meat smelled funny, and the platanos were not even fried before being mashed and seemed like they made a mangu and just put pernil around it. I starving so I had about a forth of the mofongo but could not continue any longer as I started getting to the bottom and the meat smelled even more strange. I ended up just throwing the rest away and continued with my day. That was the only meal I had that day and by 4 pm I was nauseous, delirious, and began to vomit. My coworker who is a Physician's Assistant gave my nausea medication and fluids to help with my vomiting. I began to get the worse stomach cramps of my life and it felt like someone was stabbing me in upper part of my stomach and the only way I felt comfortable was kneeling over. I was projectile vomiting and continued to vomit although there was nothing left in my stomach. Imagine trying to vomit when there is nothing left, it honestly felt like horror movie. I started throwing up phlegm and blood as there was nothing left in my stomach. I live in Jersey although I work on SI nd I had to have my mother in law and husband pick my up as I could not drive home due to the extreme pain and vomiting. The whole car ride home I vomited along the turnpike and even had to stop to use the bathroom on the side of the road in front of all those cars. My husband immediately rushed me the hospital as I was in agonizing pain. They are now testing me for ova and parasites as they feel that I might have been contaminated with trichinosis which is a parasite found in undercooked pork. Whatever you do, DO NOT EAT HERE!!!!! I have been scarred for life and cannot even look or smell food as it provokes me to throw up. I am also writing a a letter to the state s this may turn into a health violation for parasitic...

Hey, We wuz hungry one evening and went to one of our favorite resturants but saddly once we got there we discovered it went out of business, The sadness sunk in and it took a minute after years of happiness Charlie Browns of Staten Island is no more, With our sights having already been made for a dinner at Charlies we now had to figure it out on the fly, We were not near any of our secondary choices so we headed towards another place, As fate would have it once we got to 2nd place we decided it was not serving what we wanted so we moved on and discovered El Pollo resturant, By looks of El Pollo one may not want to try it as it appears to be a take out place, We wanted to get this over with and went inside and decided to give it a go, As you enter you can see all the foods in which you can order and then sit and eat and in case you dont know, Pollo means Chicken and thats what they serve in the Spanish variety along with a few rice dishes and Pork and Ribs too, We ordered our foods by choosing what we wanted after viewing all the cooked foods in the buffet type setting all the choices were in, We were very happy with the huge servings and great service and we left very satisfied although it was not what we originally wanted to eat it did present us well, El Pollo is a fine little place for a nice Spanish dinner and they really do a great job at serving huge plates and the take out orders are huge as well as they had many many take...

Somehow this place has an A grade but in my opinion the food being given is like a D on borderline F. The food is hit or miss recently MISS! Don't know how some say it's best in the island or outstanding. Fine if you don't feel like cooking but don't think it should be a place to go daily, at least in my opinion. I ended up going one night and my rice was undercooked. As for my order of plantains it was seemed deep fried as oppose to when it's generally semi cooked, then taken out of fryer to be flattened to then be fried again to give it a crisp texture. I went back to give place another chance cause when I first moved into this area few years ago the food was fine but no idea what is going on. I went the rice was room temperature and got pieces of dry rice which is what happens when dries out from bottom of pot. My plantain order was warm at best and the pork was cold. I hate cold food. I could've said something but I hate returning food. Though it's one simple thing to do, give HOT FOOD. What a shame it's not...