San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Al Carbon vs. Los Norteños
Smoking out best N. Mexico-style grilled chicken
Four years ago, I about gave up on Pollos Asados Los Norteños.
They’d been one of San Antonio’s favorite spots for Northern Mexico-style grilled chicken since Frank Garcia started hustling from a food truck in the mid-2000s. But smoke problems pouring from the mesquite coals at the original Rigsby Avenue location had forced them to shut down and come back again more often than an Elton John farewell tour.
So in 2018 I set out to build a Top 10 pollos asados list to save San Antonians from yet another drive-by disappointment at Los Norteños. I hit trailers, mom-and-pops, even a startup called Pollos Asados Don Carbon.
And wouldn’t you know it? Los Norteños rallied and took the No. 1 spot anyway. But the No. 2 contender took me by surprise: Don Carbon. Just a couple of months on the scene, and they’d already cracked the code with chicken that inhaled achiote-citrus marinade and exhaled mesquite twang with close to the same intensity as the champ.
In the spirit of my occasional series throwing San Antonio restaurant institutions into the ring to punch it out for bragging rights, I wanted a rematch for Los Norteños and Don Carbon, which has since rebranded itself as Al Carbon Pollos Asados after a legal challenge from an El Paso restaurant already using Don Carbon.
My little fight club’s already hosted Fred’s Fish Fry and Sea Island Shrimp House, the barbecue brawlers Bill Miller and Rudy’s and the puffy taco punch-up between Henry’s Puffy Tacos and Ray’s Drive Inn.
Now it’s time to put up or shut up about pollos asados.
Al Carbon Pollos Asados
Al Carbon and Los Norteños clearly borrow pages from the same playbook. Both use a radiant achiote paste marinade sharpened and sweetened with citrus. Both cook over live coals. Both have a concise menu of chicken sold half or whole with rice, grilled onions, salsa, a grilled jalapeño, lime and papery, store-bought corn tortillas. And both sell Mexican hamburguesas, fajitas and a few other forms of grilled beef.
A big difference is that owner Alfredo Garza started Al Carbon in 2018, more than 10 years after Los Norteños fired up, so there’s some underdog energy happening here.
The food: Al Carbon treats chicken skin like gold plating, adding value to its bird with char and caramelization that concentrated flavor from the outside in and preserved a degree of juiciness in the smoke-tinged meat underneath. A zap of citrus and salt did most of the talking, eventually quieting down enough to let the dusky achiote spice have its moment. The chop was rough, though, with pieces shedding wayward fragments and pieces.
Sides split the ticket, with rice so bland it’s a mystery where the light orange color came from, countered by charro beans throwing a party in the bowl with bacon, tomato, shaggy bits of mystery meat and a tile roof ’s worth of chicharrones.
An argument against overspecialization, Al Carbon’s salchiburger did what a Mexican burger does so well: it went over the top — way over — with a bright red sausage link split in half and filled with cheese sitting on top of a tall, lush beef patty with grilled onions and ham. But the big picnic bun handled the load with grace.
An argument for not veering
too far outside your lane came in the form of grilled beef fajitas and a sizzle platter of short ribs, both flat, both tough, both leaning on salt and the sweetness of grilled onions to do the heavy lifting for them.
Al Carbon makes a decent salsa roja, but the salsa verde looked and tasted too close to mayo or Mexican crema to generate any real spark.
The atmosphere: Al Carbon’s original location on Culebra Road just east of Interstate 10 has the papel picado-bannered charm of a momand-pop with pro-level signage that suggests an operation with bigger ambitions.
The intangibles: The smoke is coming from outside the house. Al Carbon does its heavy smoke work in a trailer parked outside the restaurant. Less show, but less risk of smoke stealing the show in the dining room.
Where to find them: 547 Culebra Road, 210-550-1589, alcarbonsatx.com. There’s
another location just two blocks east with a drive-thru, patio seating and a dining room at 403 Culebra Road, 210-467-5155. There’s a third location at 13835 Nacogdoches Road, 210-686-9027.
Pollos Asados Los Norteños
It’s a relief that Los Norteños finally sorted out its smoke issues, a task accomplished with scrubber vents, pipes and boxes on the roof like a galvanized space shuttle. Finally settled in, they expanded to a second location farther north in 2020, just in time for owner Frank Garcia to have face masks printed with the Los Norteños logo, building on his penchant for marketing that includes Tshirts trumpeting “Más Green Sauce.” Yes, más.
The food: If show cooking is a form of marketing, Los Norteños has that on lock, with a grill room outfitted with windows like the cage of some exotic beast at the zoo.
The line of flattened, spatchcoked, orange-skinned chickens laid out on that grill can number in the dozens at a time, but inside the restaurant, they’re chopped with precision in pieces, the uniform orange lacquer speckled with charred bits that cooking shows used to call “yumyums.”
Los Norteños birds are all about balance, with a tangy marinade that found equilibrium with salt and citrus evenly distributed through the skin. The grill temperature and timing game are tight, producing chicken with equal degrees of juice and smoke.
Sides traded places with Al Carbon, with underdressed and underseasoned beans that did little more than show up and rice that brought something like light chicken soup flavor to the mix.
If a Mexican hamburguesa can be a study in excess, Los Norteños gets extra credit for a salchiburger piled with beef, split sausage, cheese, ham and
grilled onions. It was so big, I had to unhinge my jaw for a bite, characteristic of the style. But for all that, it didn’t carry the same size of flavor, becoming a sloppy, soggy mess just a few bites in.
The grilled beef menu at Los Norteños stretches beyond its fat, juicy fajitas to something called “brocheta,” which traditionally is a skewer staked with meat and veggies. Here, it was laid out on a sizzling iron skillet, a grill party of tender steak, fat pieces of ham, sweet red jalapeño and even sweeter grilled onions. I liked the fajitas; I loved the brocheta.
Whatever else Los Norteños might do, there are a few reasons they sell their green salsa in 12-ounce containers to-go. For one, it’s a rough slurry like a good curry with a flavor somewhere between a deseeded jalapeño and bliss. And two, it’s easier than trying to sneak out a squeeze bottle in your back pocket like Garcia caught a guy doing one time.
The atmosphere: There’s an energy at the original Los Norteños on Rigsby, the kind of energy generated by the anxiety of waiting for a table in a restaurant that seems forever full. Even as the lunch crowd thinned, the pock-pockpock of the cleaver creating more pollo plates rang out like percussive clockwork.
The intangibles: Los Norteños has become as efficient as a theme park ride. The Pollo-Nator! The staff is sharp and attentive, the food comes out fast, and it’s consistently good. Keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times.
Where to find them: The original is at 4642 Rigsby Ave., 210-648-3303, polloslosnortenos.com.
There’s a second location at 4822 Walzem Road, 210-4814168.
The winner
Los Norteños and Al Carbon slug it out like MMA fighters, trading jabs all over the menu. Los Norteños has better rice. Al Carbon has better beans. Los Norteños has better fajitas. Al Carbon has better burgers. It’s a draw all the way to the main event.
But just like in real life, nobody watches the fights farther down the card with the same intensity as the title fight. And the title fight’s all about pollos asados. Los Norteños’ version has a more balanced achiote-citrus flavor, a stronger sear, a cleaner chop and a juicier bite, making them the winner and the reigning champion since 2018.