El Palacio Del Pollo — Restaurant in West Orange

Visiting my family in town and stumbled upon this gem. The reviews I read before coming here do not do this place justice. We ordered 7 dishes for my family of 6, the rotisserie chicken was one of them. Our server, Myra (I believe) told us 3 times to make sure we understood that they are making a new round of chicken because it sold out and that it would take around an hour and a half. We didn’t mind at all since we had plenty of catching up to do amongst ourselves. The 6 other dishes came out in such a timely manner that the hour and a half FLEW. Their ceviche is ridiculous. So FLAVORFUL and spiced so well. The fried rice, paella, and huancaina were phenomenal as well. Other reviews talk about a wait for the chicken as if it’s a surprise. Seems like they weren’t listening because they could easily get something else that’s still amazing on the menu in a shorter time frame. Chicken was DELICIOUS and the hot sauces offered elevated the flavor. We ended up forcing desserts down our throats and tried a vanilla short bread cookie with dulce de leche inside which was easily one of the best cookies I’ve ever had and their flan which was also exceptional. I heard they just reopened after being closed a while. I’m super excited for the next time I’m in the Orange area to try some...

The food is great I’m not going to lie. I hate to give this place 2 stars but it needs a lot of improvement since they have reopened. I’ve been coming here ever since I was very young. The pollo de la brasa (rotisserie chicken)is what people come here for mostly from Thursday thru Sunday. I crave it but then there is always the 30 min to 1:30hr wait time for the chicken or they run out of chicken considering the name of the restaurant. I wish there was a better way to improve this because it is so inconvenient as a customer to have to wait and wait. I’ve seen the staff let people know about the wait and people just sigh in disappointment and walk out. They are losing customers that way. Also, they do not let you call in and order ahead, which is another terrible service. So point is, if you want to come here and have a nice meal(particularly the chicken), don’t expect much other than a wait because the issue still doesn’t seem to get resolved. The service is certainly not good here...

It’s been awhile since we’ve dined in and use to frequent often and take out prior to the pandemic. We finally made it back to fine in yesterday and was glad to be back.

While I don’t care too much of decor as long as the food is great and service reasonable, it was nice to see some updates and strong AC working on a very hot and humid day outside (the air con was super lacking in prior years and hard to dine in)

I forgot to take photos so will be back to add but the food was great and I may have to say slightly better than before. It was a Monday early evening so no diners besides us family if 5

We had the camarone fried rice, mixed grill (beef ribs, pork chops, grilled chicken breast, sausage) which was for 2 but shared; pescado ceviche, maduros and it was fantastic

Looking forward to coming...