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| - I really wanted to like this place, but it didn't live up to my expectations. Ki Pollo offers fried chicken, empanadas, as well as some other extras. The day I visited they were also offering a kimchi soup.
I dropped by for lunch with a friend, and we ordered the combo and a fried chicken sandwich.
For the two empanadas which come with the combo, I chose to try the chicken and beef. They came to our table as we waited for our other food. The empanadas were piping hot, flavorful, and went well with the chimichurri sauce that they came with. I would recommend trying their empanadas out. They're super hot though so be careful with your fingers!
The combo was made up of 3 fried chicken pieces (drumstick, breast, and wing), and came with some cucumber slice pickles and a scallion bun. I also got to choose 2 sauces, so I picked the Gochujan and Tamarind BBQ ones. The fried chicken was hot and crunchy, and seemed fresh. It was fine, but I felt like it was lacking juiciness which was my main issue. I feel like if you have Pollo in your store's name, your pollo should be top notch. I didn't like the sauces. I usually really like gochujang things (I have some Korean brand gochujang in my fridge), but something about this sauce just tasted off to me. I wish it had more of a kick. The Tamarind BBQ was sweet and alright, but I didn't really think it went with the fried chicken that well. However, maybe I should have just chosen different sauces given that I don't usually like sweet sauces that much. The scallion bun was very fluffy and I liked that a lot. Pickles were also good.
The sandwich comes with the fried chicken breast with kimchi and the gochujang/tamarind bbq sauces between shokupan (Japanese toast). It's a sizeable sandwich that will fill you up, but my friend said he got tired of eating it near the end. In terms of flavor though, I feel like the components went together really well. My only gripe is that I felt like the shokupan should have been fluffier/a little more moist. I really like shokupan (also have that at my house), so I had some high expectations. Maybe the one we got was over-toasted.
Overall this place wouldn't be my top choice for fried chicken in Pittsburgh. However, if I was a little hungry in Lawrenceville I would pop in to try another empanada flavor.
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