My partner has lusted for Portuguese chicken for some time for some reason. Essentially, it’s just wood fire-cooked chicken. You can expect lots of woodsy flavors, and supposedly a lot of juicy flavors as well since you’re sweating the chicken. We saw Phil Rosenthal from “Somebody Feed Phil” on Netflix come here and have a fantastic time. The real big question though for me is his palette similar to mine (or ours). When we arrived here around 2:30 PM in the afternoon, and there was a line already.
Ambiance & Service
Fortunately, the line was not too bad. It was cold outside, but we eventually made it in within 10 minutes where we started waiting close to the bench near the sign. The interior of the restaurant is definitely no frills, and it’s very hustling and bustling. You just wait in line, tell the butchers what you want, then wait near the cashier until they announce the order.
Seating is basically first come first serve, and it’s similar to any trendy spot in NYC where there are lines and small seating areas. Do not come here expecting to seat a family of 8 comfortably.
The cashier that I interacted with seemed to be able to understand Spanish and French, but couldn’t understand any English. And to my surprise when I asked for a “flan”, she didn’t understand. Flan can typically be understood similarly in Portuguese, Spanish, and French, so I am not sure.
Food
The Le Louis Cyr (listed on site at $17 CAD, but receipt says $14.79 CAD converts to ~$11 USD today) was a 1/2 chicken served with salad and fries. The salad here had nothing special.
This was the half chicken with fries. The chicken was surprisingly dry and not great. It had some type of oil or sauce on it, that was quite salty. One good way of testing how the cook of the chicken is is simply by trying the chicken breast. It was basically overcooked to death and extremely dry. The fries were OK, but were heavily salted.
The Petite (small) Poutine (listed on site at $14 CAD, but receipt says $12.18 CAD converts to ~$10 USD) came with São Jorge cheese, grilled chicken, and chorizo. This was probably our favorite of everything, and what you should come here to get if you wanted poutine. The mix of the meats and cheese were a perfect combination in heaven, albeit everything was salty. The gravy does its job momentarily to forget the saltiness, only to have you keep wanting to drink something. You can tell that even the “small” version of this was quite filling for the both of us. We actually brought back to our hotel most of the half chicken and fries.
The Pastel de Nata (left - $1.75 CAD converts to $1.31 USD) was taken out of the fridge and served cold. This was just OK. We definitely have had better, particularly we remember a natas kiosk in the Toronto area at the Distillery District.
The mini flan (right - $3.05 CAD converts to $2.28 USD) was actually pretty bad. The flan actually came out curdled as if you were eating cold steamed eggs, so the consistency wasn’t good at all. There were little air holes everywhere implying that they baked it at too high of a temperature.
Final Verdict
Ma Poule Mouillée overall was underwhelming for us. The chicken was not good despite it being cheap. Ideally, the thing to get here is the poutine if you had to try something. Other than that, the flavors are not memorable if you’ve had this type of chicken before. One place I recommend if you are in the Los Angeles area for just wood fired chicken is a Peruvian place called Pollo A La Brasa, which I had frequented for a decade before I moved out to NYC.
Yelp Jabs
the chicken is so juicy and flavorful
Maybe the dark meat. The white meat not so much.
They specialize in Peruvian rotisserie chicken, and the platters themselves look amazing
This Elitist should look again. It’s actually Portuguese rotisserie chicken. My understanding is that Portuguese rotisserie uses African and Portuguese spices, and they often add a pepper (piri piri) sauce on the side or on top. The Peruvian style chicken is often served with aji (Peruvian green pepper) sauce.
Revisions
- Dec 28, 2023 - Initial revision.