Pollo Tropical’s Spanish name signals Caribbean food, not tacos
What’s in a name? Better question … what’s on the menu?
Servando Alcocer, catering manager for the five Pollo Tropical restaurants in Houston, says some Texans don’t quite understand his restaurants’ name — and what kind of food they serve.
They think Pollo Tropical is a Mexican restaurant. Wrong. “I guess many Texans are not familiar with Caribbean and South American culture and our style of food. We have a lot of customers come in every day and ask for Mexican food,” Alocer said. “It’s funny when they pull up in the drivethrough, and with a very Texan accent, ask for tacos or fajitas. Our side items of yuca and plantains are very popular and common in Florida, but most Texans have never heard of them. They ask for ‘yuck-ahh,” and I have to nicely respond it’s pronounced ‘you-kah’ and explain what it is.
“We also have ‘mojo’ roast pork. Mojo is a sauce or marinade made with garlic and citrus juices and it gives our chicken and pork its distinct flavor. Americans mispronounce it as ‘mo-joe’ — like ‘we lost our mojo’ — instead of the Spanish pronunciation of ‘mo-ho.’ ”
Alcocer estimates that 40 percent of new customers think Pollo Tropical is a Mexican restaurant.
Let’s get it straight. Pollo Tropical is a fast-food chain, based in Miami, that serves Caribbean-style food, like grilled chicken marinated in tropical juices and spices, and side dishes like black beans and rice and yuca. Yuca is a root vegetable similar to potatoes.
I once spent a week in Cuba, and my hotel offered mashed yuca every night on the buffet. Confession: I thought it was pronounced “yuck-ahh,” too, and I ate a ton of it. I couldn’t tell it apart from mashed potatoes.
Pollo Tropical has 165 restaurants in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee and several Caribbean and Central American countries.
Almost forgot, Pollo Tropical
helped feed the Kansas State football team before the 2016 Texas Bowl at NRG Stadium.
K-State won that game, 33-28, over Texas A&M. Comprende?
Gruber owns small screen
For a guy who runs a couple of Jewish delis, owner Ziggy Gruber sure has a lot of ham in him.
Gruber, owner of Kenny & Ziggy’s on Post Oak and Buffalo Speedway, recently appeared on the premiere of “America Undiscovered” on the Jewish Life Television channel. JLTV is the “first and only 24/7 Jewishthemed television network with a diversity of cultural, educational, entertainment and public affairs programming.”
You would think I’d have known that. They say it’s available on Comcast and DirecTV and other major programming carriers.
“America Undiscovered” is a 30-minute show airing Sunday nights. Each episode “shares stories about Jews throughout North America trying to preserve their heritage.”
I asked Gruber, “You’re on TV more than Chip and Jojo Gaines (I’m hooked on “Fixer Upper”). How many shows have you been on, and which one has paid off the most?”
“The first show I was on was the Channel 2 morning news, back when we first opened in 1999. I saw the weatherman Chuck George reporting from Memorial Park in the freezing cold. There were practically no runners. All you could see was Chuck freezing his tuchas off. I saw an opportunity,” Gruber said.
“I threw my clothes on and went to the restaurant to get some chicken soup. I put it in a big metal pot and, while he was reporting on the air, I came out of left field and told him to have some soup. You can’t buy that kind of advertising.
“We’ve been on ‘Good Morning America’ cooking up traditional Jewish food. That was our first national show. We’ve been on with Debra Duncan many times. She has a fantastic sense of humor and a very large following. It’s been a help for the growth of our business. We did a 5-minute segment on ESPN when Houston hosted the Final Four basketball tournament. We were on a show called “All You Can Eat” for the History Channel with the late comedian John Pinette. He had the famous line, ‘Show me the buffet.’
“But the biggest of them all was ‘Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives’ on the Food Network. Guy Fieri has a following like no other. People would make pilgrimages just to eat at our deli. That show took us to another level.”
The naked truth
So Playboy is putting photos of naked women back in the magazine. I’ve got a feeling that whole “no more nudity” rule was a fake-out, a flop on purpose, just to drum up publicity for the return of T&A. You know, like New Coke or signing Brock Osweiler to quarterback the Texans.
Burger King in France has a new product: the Egg Burger. It’s a quarter-pound beef patty with a sunny-side-up egg on top. It’s served in a cardboard package that looks like an egg carton. Please bring this to America, Mr. Burger King, because a burger dripping in runny egg yolk is fantastic.
I have to admit, I was wrong about Stephen Colbert. I thought CBS made a tremendous blunder when it picked Colbert to replace David Letterman. I figured, Colbert has made it clear for years on his Comedy Central show — he’s a liberal Democrat, with a razor-sharp tongue. I thought roughly half of America would want no part of him on CBS. According to the latest ratings, Colbert has nudged ahead of Jimmy Fallon for total viewers in late night. Fallon still leads with younger viewers, however.
Pethouse Pet of the Week Name: Bandit, as in “OneArmed” and “Smokey and the …”
Birthdate: March 1, 2016. Ethnicity: G’day, I’m an Australian Cattle Dog, mate. We’re the smartest dogs, right? I know, if I’m so smart, what am I doing in an animal shelter? Get me outta here, and I’ll tell you … in five different languages. Bandit’s brain droppings:
Here are the lineups for the 2017 NBA Celebrity All-Star Game. The West team: Miles Brown (actor), Tom Cavanagh (actor), Mark Cuban (Mavericks owner), Baron Davis (former NBA player), Andy Grammer (musician), Jiang Jinfu (musician), Anthony Mackie (actor), Romeo Miller (musician/actor), Hasan Minhaj (actor/comedian), Master P (musician/actor), Candace Parker (WNBA player) and Aaron Sanchez (celebrity chef )
The East team: Brandon Armstrong (social media star), Win Butler (musician), Nick Cannon (actor/musician), Rachel DeMita (NBA 2K TV personality), Ansel Elgort (actor/ musician), Marc Lasry (Bucks owner), Caleb McLaughlin (actor), Peter Rosenberg (media personality), Oscar Schmidt (former international basketball player), Lindsay Whalen (WNBA player), Jason Williams (former NBA player) and Kris Wu (musician)
What word needs to be dropped from the title of this game? How about “celebrity?” When you have to say what the celebrity does (“media personality”), that’s not a celebrity. These rosters aren’t exactly the Hollywood Walk of Fame.