East London Fried Chicken List: Chill Grill Vs. Sancho's: Commercial Rd.

It is always strange when confronted with two chicken shops consecutive to each other. Placed between the 24 hour off license I visit daily and the bus stop which I generally use to go towards the City, these two seemed like the obvious shops to pit against each other in order to find my premier local. The PFC near Stepney Green park on Stepney Way is not worth considering.

Sancho's

Whilst performing a sortie on each, I was beckoned into Sancho's, by a man who was almost certainly not Sancho himself, and, I think it's safe to say, not employed by anyway by the name of Sancho. I ordered a 1 piece and chips, priced at, if I remember correctly, £1.80. Reasonable portion of chips, the standard for any East London chicken shop really, though I nearly ruined mine with chili sauce, which always is onlya slightly different shade to ketchup. I got a rib with a reasonable amount of meat on the bone. The batter was good and the meat was tender and came off the bone easily, though it was slightly pink - always a bad sign for the stomach. Fanta was available as a beverage.

All in all a standard meal. I would have considered this again had it not been for the quality of Chill Grill and the slight rawness of the meat messing with my stomach.

Rating (/10)

Aesthetics: 8.25
Chips: 9
Size: 8
Fat: 8
Amount/Quality of meat: 4.5
Stomach Damage post-meal: 10

Map

Chill Grill

After my stomach recovered from Sancho's chicken, I tried Chill Grill. This time I ordered a 2 piece and chips meal, which came to £2.50. The size and the quality of meat here was exceptional: again average chips, but I was given 2 very large chicken breasts which were cooked to perfection. The meat was completely white, and a large amount of the fat had evidently been removed pre-cooking, though not so much as the breast was unable to stick together in the batter. The batter itself was also perfect, and I was able to remove it in conjunction with a similar sized chunk of meat. Probably due to the exceptional meat preparation, my stomach also suffered no adverse affect post-meal.

The only negative point was that halfway through my meal, what had previously been the half-serenity of the Chill Grill was shattered by some particularly rawkus kids. I have no beef with this, it is to be expected, and they were having a great time doing whatever the hell they were doing, but I was unable to 'chill' as it might be expected to do so in the Chill Grill.

Here are some pictures I took of the food: