Pepper Roast

Pepper Roast
1985 Powell Street
Vancouver, BC

You have to admit it: Once in a while, you want food that is bad for you but you can’t help it because it tastes good. A really good example of that type of food is fried food. Dropping a morsels in hot oil where it then starts to bubble, wait for some minutes (more or less depending on what is being prepared) and there you go. A metamorphosis of a simple piece of morsel into some delicious… Yet bad for your health, with all that oil and who-knows-what. In that attempt to make things “healthier”, somebody invented Shake n’ Bake and, well, the rest is history… Or so they say. The question for me has always been: would any restaurant dare to “oven fry” their chicken rather than throw them in hot oil? I guess the owners from Pepper Roast did…

Now, before I continue, they do not sell only oven fried chicken; they also have roasted chicken. On my visit, I could have ordered both but I had a mental gap and ended up ordering the oven fried chicken only. And that brings the question of my visit. What the @#$!@#$ I was doing there?! To those who haven’t been in the area, it is in Vancouver East Side (by North, I must add) where you have a mix of industrial and residential; however, leaning more towards the former. As a result, you see a lot of cars passing by but, otherwise, it might be a somewhat dead area. Still, this is not something I worry much about. After all, good eats can be found on unusual places. Still, I haven’t answered the question: why I was in the area? Did I come only for the chicken? While I could have said that was the case, I am not going to fib: I was in nearby Freybe’s stocking on some sausages and decided to drop by Pepper Roast. The question was then… Does their oven fried chicken beast a good ole fried chicken?

After I walked in, I was greeted by the cashier, though I suspect he is the owner. I wanted to bring this because, in their menu, they proudly mention they are not a chain despite it looks like one. Rather, it is a family operated business. But, be assured, my thoughts on this place do not take this into consideration. Anyway, I scanned quickly through their menu and decided to order a four piece meal. That is where my mental gap hit me: I could have ordered two pieces of oven fried and a quarter of the roasted. The price different would have been pretty much nil. Argh! Anyway, here are the four pieces.

It was served with some salad and I had the option for potato, macaroni or the coleslaw, which is what I ended up ordering. The salad appears to be from a bag rather than cut in house; however, I won’t stress too much on this detail. However, to make it different, they add some pumpkin seeds which added a small level of nuttiness. Unfortunately, while in principle it sounded good, the end result was not. Don’t get me wrong, it was edible, just that the dressing used did not add much in term of flavours. I.e., it wasn’t creamy nor vinegar-y. It just served to dampen slightly the bitterness of eating it sans dressing.

Ah… The chicken… As mentioned above, four pieces. The good thing? I was given four pieces of dark meat! I know some of you prefer white meat but, believe me, dark meat rules. It is moist and more flavourful than white meat. However, I guess some people prefer one over the other… But, putting that aside, notice something “interesting” from the picture above? Since fried chickens are usually “covered” with flour, egg and a mix of bread crumbs and other seasonings, it would “meld” together with the skin to a certain extent. However, because they are not fried here, the end result was different – it almost developed into a crust.

Past the skin/crust, when I struck the meat, I will admit it wasn’t bad. In fact, it was better that some of the fast food chains! Now, since they were under a hot lamp, they were not piping hot, only slightly warm enough. Interestingly, there were traces of juices, which means it wasn’t dried out yet. As for the chicken itself, it still had some chicken flavour, but I wished they added more herbs and spices to “improve” the meat.

As I kept on eating, I was enjoying the chicken more and more. In fact, if it wasn’t because I knew it was oven fried chicken, I would have say it was a somewhat oddly fried, yet tasty, chicken. If I had to compare it to the one I had at Fuel, I will have to say the ones here were pretty good! Am I a convert? Not necessarily. I mean, this chicken was a really good alternative to the regular fried chicken but, as mentioned above, sometimes you want to feel that guilt. Regardless, the end product was good (though a slightly expensive). Sure, it is not Lee’s Chicken or LA Chicken good – but good still and chances are I will come back. Now, if somebody please tell me that oven fried is not an oxymoron…

Tagged under: Chicken • Lunch • Vancouver