Restaurant: Koo Koo Roo Location: All over Southern California Plus a few locations in Northern California, Las Vegas, and Florida. Price Range: $4.99-$8.79

Number of visits: many
Last visit before review: December 26, 2001

Randy has had: Original leg & thigh, barbecue chicken salad, original chicken breast sandwich, vegetable soup, turkey soup, green beans, baked yams, fresh fruit, iced tea.

Jeff has had: Original leg & thigh, rotisserie leg & thigh, barbecue chicken salad, vegetable soup, turkey soup, macaroni & cheese, roasted potatoes, fresh fruit, green beans, butternut squash, hot potatoes, iced tea.

Rating 9 (of 12) Good

Randy says: The chicken on the original leg & thigh is moist even though it's skinless. It has a nice tomato-based flavor. The chicken breast sandwich comes on surprisingly good bread that's crusty and substantial. I like the sauce although I usually ask them to go light on it. A little goes a long way. It comes with Romaine lettuce which is nice.

Jeff says: I really like the original leg & thigh. I've tried the rotisserie leg & thigh and it's good too, but not as good as the original. It must be the zesty marinade they use. The chicken comes with thin lavash bread under it on the plate. It's tasteless and bland, but I find after I've finished all the chicken the lavash has soaked up a lot of the marinade and sometimes I eat those flavorful parts. I tried the barbecue chicken salad since it's the only salad on the menu that I might like, but I didn't. After a while I tired of the taste of the dressing.

Randy says: The barbecue chicken salad has good lettuce and nice chicken, but the dressing is abominable. It's overly sweet with a strange flavor. Oddly their choice of dressings omits standard ones such as ranch. Surprisingly, the fat content is higher than a leg & thigh with two sides, so it's not the thing to get if avoiding fat is a goal. The vegetable soup is flavorful and chock full of vegetables. The turkey soup is usually quite delicious, although occasionally over-salty. It has a rich turkey flavor with tiny chewy dumplings.

Jeff says: The vegetable soup is okay. There are big branches of brocoli in there which I have to eat around. The broth and other vegetables are nice. The turkey soup is really good. It's not on the menu, and they don't always have it so we often have to get the vegetable when we'd prefer the turkey.

Randy says: The yams are generally very large and nicely cooked. They fortunately refrain from candying them. They're a healthy and tasty alternative to potatoes. The green beans are acceptable, although usually overcooked as is all too common. Also as is becoming quite common they lazily refrain from snipping the ends. The fresh fruit varies seasonally and is sometimes quite good.

Jeff says: The green beans are often bland and overcooked, but they are about the only side dish left at Koo Koo Roo that isn't high in carbs and meets my liking. The fresh fruit is usually different kinds of melon. Often it is hard and under-ripe. After the cantaloupe scare of 2001, I decided it wasn't worth risking an illness for hard, under-ripe melon slices. In the more tasty but less healthy category are the mac & cheese, roasted potatoes, and hot potatoes (hot pots). The mac & cheese is nicely flavorful and sometimes you get a little of the crust which makes it extra good. The roasted potatoes are good but are a bit greasy. The hot potatoes, which aren't particularly spicy, are cut thin like potato chips and are best if crisp and crunchy, but sometimes they're soft. The butternut squash is good but I can only take small amounts of the rich taste. I like the iced tea they serve.

Randy says: I like the roasted potatoes. They're seasoned with a drizzle of oil. I don't care for the hot pots because they're thin slices of very greasy potato. The iced tea is not bad.

There are few fast food type outfits that we frequent, usually because we don't like the type of food, or we don't like having to eat with our hands or plastic utensils. We view Koo Koo Roo as a step above normal fast food outlets. They have good food and they provide actual metal utensils, although the plates, cups, and everything else are still disposable. And there is the advantage of "fast". When we go to Koo Koo Roo for lunch we always have time left over to relax before getting back to work, or to run extra errands.

From the menu you can choose which part of which bird you prefer — chicken or turkey, light or dark — and how many and which of the mostly healthy sides you want. Or you can go for a sandwich, a salad, a chop rice bowl, a pot pie, or just sides if you're not much into fowl. You can also get bulk meals with bulk sides to feed a whole family.

The only thing we wonder about — and they really should change this — is the winking chicken logo all over the place. Why is it everywhere we look this chicken is winking at us? Does it know something we should know before we go at it?