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Smuggler's Blues Checking the chicken at Campero
Some people smuggle drugs. I smuggle muffuletta.
Muffuletta is one of New Orleans' iconic sandwiches, an Italian
sesame-seed-studded bread loaf split horizontally and topped with a
salad of olives, celery, cauliflower and carrot marinated in olive oil
and herbs, and layers of freshly sliced capicola, salami, mortadella,
emmentaler and provolone. You can find the sandwich outside of New
Orleans, but as with many regional delicacies, such as the Philly
cheesesteak, something gets lost in translation. Thanks to my friends
Brian and Sara Gronowski, who fly in a bakery's load from Central
Grocery in New Orleans for their annual Mardi Gras party, I got a shot
at the best version before ever stepping foot in the French Quarter.
The sandwich might as well have been the president of the New Orleans
chamber of commerce, because after my first bite, two months later I was
on a plane to Louisiana.
When I finally rolled down to 923 Decatur Street and saw the
red-painted wood shingle for Central Grocery, hawking "French Market
Coffee," it was akin to the joy I have when spotting the Chicago
skyline from the Dan Ryan after a long trip away from the city. In a
place in which I'd never lived, I was damn glad to be home.
That first visit, the lines were out the door, and as I got close to
the entrance, I greedily pawed at the windows with my greasy fingers.
When I finally rolled through the flimsy wooden door, the yeasty perfume
of fresh bread roiled in my nostrils. In that moment, I was compelled
to strangle the dude who invented commercial baking, the man who most
assuredly robbed me of the constant joy of smelling freshly baked bread
throughout my life. (If you want to know what I'm talking about, head
on over to the Gonnella bread plant one morning.)
That afternoon, a personal New Orleans-to-Chicago tradition was born.
On every return visit to the Big Easy, there would always be an order
for two muffulettas, one to eat at Central amidst the ruddy hanging
salamis and crinkly cellophane bags of pasta, and one for the plane ride
home.
On that first journey back to Chicago, I'd carelessly stashed the
sandwich in my carry-on. Halfway through the flight, the cabin started
to smell like the fruity perfume of olive salad. People leered, out of
jealousy or anger, maybe both, as the white paper wrapper soaked
through, yielding a big fat greasy circle on my backpack. I should have known better. After all I knew a dude who once chucked
a dime bag of pot into a trash bin outside Paris Charles de Gaulle
Airport while simultaneous checking to make sure his wild boar sausage
and unpasteurized cheese were inconspicuously stowed in his luggage.
Next time I'd bring a plastic bag.
Intercontinental food traffic isn't anything new, and it's rumored
that some flights from Guatemala or El Salvador to the United States are
notorious for smelling like a Frialator on overdrive. The source of
the greasy tang: deep-fried chicken from Pollo Campero.
While Pollo Campero, founded in 1971, is ubiquitous in Central
America, there's only twenty-eight locations in the U.S. Fortunately for
Chicagoans, Levy restaurants, the restaurant behemoth that operates
Spiaggia, bought franchise rights and opened a Campero in 2005 at the
Brickyard mall at 2730 North Narragansett.
As a food smuggler, the fact that others would risk airplane air
quality, and the ire of their fellow passengers, meant I had to check
this chicken out.
From the clean tastes to the bright décor, it's hard to believe this
is fast food. Minutes before I arrived at the restaurant I was cranky
from the long drive, and yet halfway through the ordering line I caught
myself happily bobbing my head to the incessant mariachi meets carnival
music piped in over the restaurant speakers, as if I were a Phish head
on acid. Everything, including the cheery servers, is so carefully
crafted, it almost borders on cultish.
Campero's chicken is fresh, not frozen, and coated in an orange spice
crust and deep-fried. There's a whole bevy of scrumptious sides,
including crispy fried savory plantains and juicy sweet pinto beans
smothered with smoky bits of bacon and flecked with tomato, onion and
cilantro.
Sure you can get a biscuit, but you should opt for the tortillas as
your carb of choice. Once you make a visit to the salsa bar--which
features zingy pico de gallo, jalapeno-infused green sauce, lime wedges
and freshly chopped cilantro--you'll have the makings for a perfect
deep-fried chicken taco. For dessert there's a pretty decent if maybe
too wobbly flan, topped with a moat of brown caramel.
You wonder if this is what it was like to dine in a McDonald's in
California in the 1940s, at a fresh franchise poised to take over the
world. There's no way to know for sure, but one good thing I do know,
is that there won't be any in-flight grease stains or strange smells
next time I need a Pollo Campero fix.
Also by Michael Nagrant To Be Franc
Culinary Mythology
Sweet Sojourn
Super Party
Big Greek Breakfast
Mass Appeal
Outside the Lunchbox
Strawberry Fields Forever
Smitten by the Bite
The Final Meal
A Spark of Love
Zen Again
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