729 7th Street When I travel for work, they are long work days.
Our first full day in Los Angeles saw us driving to Anaheim for an assignment. We stopped at In-N-Out Burger for “lunch” then headed back to our hotel in downtown Los Angeles to finish up our work for the day.
We got done around 8:00 and I was hungry again. I didn’t want to go somewhere for a sit down meal but there was a fast food place right across from the hotel that we don’t have many of in Michigan. I figured it would be a quick, easy, cheap meal, so I put shoe on and headed out the door.
Jollibee is a chain of fast food chicken restaurant based out of the Philippines. They have about 1500 locations worldwide with about 70 in the United States. Most of those locations are on the west coast but there are some spread about the country including one in Michigan in Sterling Heights.
The downtown Los Angeles Jollibee location is on 7th Street to the southeast of the intersection with Flower Street in the Financial District. The restaurant is a stand alone store in a street level space of the Roosevelt Lofts
The restaurant is set up like any chain restaurant. There is an order counter near the back of the space with the menu on video monitors above the cash register. Neither of us had ever been to a Jollibee so we needed a few minutes to figure out what we wanted.
Chickenjoy is their signature product. It’s fried chicken. They sell it in buckets like the Colonel but they also have smaller meals. My colleague ordered one of those but I saw tenders and ordered that….BUT…this location didn’t have tenders despite the advertisements for it. I went with a sandwich instead.
It took five to ten minutes for our orders to come up. They call out a number that’s printed on the ticket when the order is ready. We took a seat in dining room….which really needed to be cleaned…while we waited. To be fair, the mess was left by people who didn’t clear their garbage so it’s not totally on the restaurant. We found a table that was open and cleaned off and sat there. There is some seating in an upstairs area too but that was closed off as it was only about 45 minutes until closing time.
Since I couldn’t get the tenders, I ordered Spicy Chicken Sandwich. This isn’t much different from any other chicken sandwich that took the country by storm a few years ago. The sandwich is a crispy, juicy, thick chicken breast, sriracha mayo, and jalapenos on a brioche bun. You can also order it deluxe which includes tomato and lettuce. The sandwich had a bit of a kick to it but nothing super spicy. There was only couple of slices on jalapenos on the bottom bun. It added a little bit of that peppery spiciness but definitely wasn’t too hot. The chicken breast had a delicious crunch to it yet it was still moist and juicy.
I got the meal which came with a drink and choice of side. I chose the fries. The fries are pretty simple fast food fries. There’s not really anything special or extraordinary about them. They just are what they are.
I added on a second side of 2 biscuits because I like biscuits. The biscuits are southern style buttermilk biscuits. They pretty light and airy but also crumbly and delicious. They offered me packets of honey but I declined. I should have grabbed them. The biscuits were tasty on their own but honey would have made them better.
The cost for my dinner was just over $15.
Jollibee is another fried chicken joint. The food is solid and they have some unique options that you can’t get in other chicken chains…including Jolly Spaghetti which is topped with a “sweet-style” sauce, ham, ground beef, and hot dogs (I probably should have tried this).