Two reviews for the price of one, because I found a great restaurant through a great delivery service.
I’ve seen a number of food delivery services come and go, so I almost hate to write about GrubHub.com, given the likelihood of its demise. But for what it’s worth, at least for the time being GrubHub.com really has it together, with a very easy to navigate webpage. In the interests of full disclosure, my exposure to GrubHub.com is thus far limited, so what follows is a little speculative. It appears that other services like Restaurants on the Run used a business model whereby their own drivers were going to the restaurants and picking up the food for delivery to the customer. To make that work, they need to charge a pretty stiff delivery charge. GrubHub.com appears to be just a central order point, with the restaurants still doing the delivery.
Anyway, I had some friends over, we got hungry, and wanted food. I was not in the mood for pizza for the millionth time, so I searched for “food delivery” and found GrubHub.com. The website provided a list of restaurants that deliver to my area, and selecting one of the choices takes you to an order screen. That’s the other thing I like about GrubHub — I won’t have to go through a separate log-in and order process for various restaurants, I can order from the one location.
And that brings us to El Pollo Norteno in Santa Ana. I never heard of the place, but glory to the heavens I didn’t have to order pizza, and instead was shown delicious choices of Mexican food. I ordered three types of wet burritos, some quesadillas and guacamole. I was able to pay for my order with Paypal, so I didn’t even need to go in search of my wallet. That makes it really nice because I just add the tip at the time of order and when the food comes, the only thing I give the driver is a hardy hello.
The time estimate for delivery scared me a little bit, because it showed that the food would not be delivered for an hour, and my friends were already hungry! As it turns out, GrubHub, or more likely the restaurant itself, gives a very conservative time estimate. In reality, the food arrived crazy fast, and I have since ordered from them three more times and that has been the case each time.
So the food was easy to order and arrived fast, but how was it? Outstanding. (Why do you think I’ve already ordered three more times?) The wet burritos were about $7.50 each, come with rice and beans, and are available with a number of meat choices (even tongue). The restaurant also included tortilla chips, some kind of sauce and a big container of delicioso (a little Spanish lingo) pickled onions. The quesadillas were only $4.99 and were stuffed with cheese. The guacamole is available in several different sizes and was very tasty and chunky.
I give GrubHub.com my highest recommendation for ease of ordering and delivery, and El Pollo Norteno is going to be my go to place when I want something delivered and am not in the mood for pizza. They apparently have a wide delivery area, so give them a try, but you’ll need to be in a group or very hungry, because there is a minimum $25 order. Just know that you’ll get a lot of food for that $25.
We picked some things at random, and sat down to wait for our food, a bit skeptical that this would be worth the drive. That skepticism continued even as we picked up the food. The portions were large, always a bonus, but the presentation wasn’t much. Both orders came in those aluminum foil containers and, oddly, the napkins were from Bagel Me.
standout was the Keefer Ranch. However, good as it was, I cannot recommend it at the $50 price. You could store a bottle for five years to see if something special develops, but there are better Pinots offered at less than $20 that are ready to drink now. Try the Rosemount Estate Pinot Noir 2004 or even the Yellow Tail Pinot Noir which sells for just $7.
