Jan 15, The Happy Chicken

January 15, 2020

Went to school in the morning, I talked to Olivia’s teacher, asking her to teach Spanish, not do coloring or unrelated games.  In our class, we learned house words such as furniture and bedroom.  After our class ended I snuck up to Olivia’s classroom and listened outside the door for a bit and they really were going over words in Spanish.  After school, I checked with Olivia and she had studied her numbers up to 100 and learned the names of some fruits and vegetables.  Much better.

We took the bus to the Pollo Feliz (Happy Chicken) restaurant across the street to the La Comeda supermarket.  We had been meaning to visit the place since we had first gone to the supermarket and noticed the restaurant had a huge kids play area.  As we got in we found the play area did not disappoint.  It was at least five times bigger than a regular McDonald’s play areas and was three stories tall and included multiple slides a foam pit and several obstacle courses.  The restaurant was mostly empty and there was only one other kid in the huge play area but Olivia still wanted to go play while we ordered. 

Pollo Feliz only served one thing and that is roast chicken.  They had half a chicken for 115 pesos and a whole chicken for 230 pesos.  This was quite expensive as many small chicken restaurants would offer a whole chicken for 85 pesos.  However, Pollo Feliz’s meals came with a basic all you can eat salad bar and freshly made tortillas.  There was lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, grated carrots, onions and green chili peppers along with chips and salsa.  Not a lot of choices for the salad bar but the few things were fresh and clean.  We ordered a half chicken, a soup for 50 pesos, French fries for 40 pesos, bottle of water for 20 pesos and a flan for 30 pesos.  Actually a pretty decent deal, half chicken, two all you can eat salad bars and sides for about US$12.  We have generally found food to be relatively inexpensive in Mexico except for the water which still costs $1.  All the restaurants in Mexico only serve bottle water which they charge for.

The food arrived and I would say the chicken was OK.  Decent taste, a little dry.  Personally I like Costco Roasterie chicken better but that is a pretty high bar to beat as the Costco chicken is cheap and consistently juicy.   We tried the chicken with the tortillas but found we liked it better as a lettuce wrap.  The chicken soup was decent with a generous amount of chicken.  The French fries were pretty good and the flan was just average.  The salsa was a little bland and the tortilla chips were a little thick for my taste. 

By the time we finished our lunch the restaurant was filling up.  The play area was full of kids and Olivia quickly found several friends to play with.  We ended up staying until almost 4 PM and I stayed in the restaurant while Holly popped across the street to pick up some groceries since we were there.  While Feliz Pollo did not have the most the delicious food, I knew that we would be returning.  It was clean and had an exceptional play area so we can’t turn that down. We took an Uber back to the hotel where we all had a rest before doing our normal routine of dinner and study.