Chickenjoy to the world: At Jollibee in Pembroke Pines, comforts of home and peach-mango pies

There are 53 Jollibee fast-food restaurants in the United States, and Anastacio Roxas has visited 20 of them, eager for Filipino dishes that reunite him with the flavorful comforts of home.

Standing in line at South Florida’s first Jollibee location in Pembroke Pines this week, Roxas had another mission, a tradition he started 20 Jollibees ago: snapping selfies with the plump-cheeked, tuxedoed mascot.

“I always take a picture with the Bee,” says Roxas, of Wilton Manors, cheesing in front of the statue — a red-and-yellow-striped bee sporting a dapper chef’s hat – with his partner, Steven Bush. “It’s a connection back to my homeland. Filipinos look at Jollibee like it’s their McDonald’s.”

A self-described Jollibee superfan (he admins a Jollibee Facebook fan page, in fact), Roxas is one of 3,800 daily customers who’ve queued up outside Jollibee Pembroke Pines since it opened in late September, according to Jollibee North American spokesperson Dianne Yorro.

That number may sound large, but it’s believable.

A Tuesday lunch-rush produced more than a hundred customers in lines that stretched into the parking lot. Most customers ordered Chickenjoy, the chain’s version of fried chicken. The restaurant occupies a primo corner spot in Pembroke Lakes Square plaza, next to a Gyroville, Chipotle and Anthony’s Coal-Fired Pizza.

Because it’s new to South Florida, locals may have little understanding of Jollibee’s world influence, but the fast-food chain has operated 5,800 locations in 33 countries since the late 1970s, mostly in the Philippines. The first Jollibee began its life as an ice-cream stand in Manila in 1975 and started franchising in 1978, beating out Ronald McDonald, who didn’t step foot in the Philippines until 1981.

If the immigrant experience in America is often expressed through food, Jollibee, to Filipinos in South Florida and beyond, is a direct connection to home cooking, Yorro says.

“We haven’t been in the U.S. very long so it’s a compliment that its nostalgic to Filipinos living here,” Yorro says. “It’s a cultural anchor for many. It provides a connection to their roots.”

Jollibee intends to open 500 locations in the United States within five to seven years, part of a new Stateside push for the chain, Yorro says.

But why now? The answer, of course, is fried chicken.

“Fried chicken and fried-chicken sandwiches are experiencing massive growth as a category here, and that’s good for us,” says Yorro, adding that an Orlando Jollibee will open in spring 2022.

It’s even better for Roxas. At age 5, he emigrated from the Philippines to the predominantly Filipino neighborhood of Woodside, Queens, in the 1970s. One of the first questions he asked his parents was, “Where’s Jollibee?”

He’s been searching for the chain ever since. Roxas, 54, has snapped selfies at Jollibees in Las Vegas, Chicago, San Francisco, Jacksonville, Tampa and 30 more in Manila.

During lunchtime Roxas ordered palabok fiesta, Jollibee’s version of pancit palabok, a traditional Filipino noodle dish doused in garlicky shrimp sauce and topped with shrimp, ground meat and halved hard-boiled eggs. He also ordered a burger steak, basically a Salisbury steak swimming in mushroom gravy, and a side of adobo rice. It reminded him of chicken adobo, the national Filipino dish of chicken stewed in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaves and black peppercorns.

“[The Philippines] are a poverty-stricken country, so if you go to a real Filipino household, you get adobo, which is cheap and affordable,” says Roxas, a retired New York City cop. “And you’ll get spaghetti that’s cooked with ketchup, a pinch of sugar and Vienna sausages. Jollibee makes it like that, just like your mom used to make it.”

But Jollibee’s buckets of fried chicken, Chickenjoy, are by far his favorite.

Jollibee Pembroke Pines is a work-in-progress, with a limited menu that will be expanded next year with more traditional Philippine dishes, Yorro says. For now it’s missing items like lumpia, or Filipino egg rolls. Nor will you find halo-halo (“mix-mix” in Tagalog), a shave-ice dessert blending ice cream, jellies and flan.

Jollibee Pembroke Pines’ menu feels at once familiar and Americanized and but also distinctly foreign, a fusion of traditional Pinoy dishes (pancit palabok) and items (like its fried chicken sandwich) that feel like the latest volley in the fast-food chain wars.

How tasty was it? I tried five menu items at Jollibee Pembroke Pines. A relative newbie to Filipino cuisine, I felt jolly devouring its fried chicken and peach-mango pie, other dishes did not exactly spark joy.

Chickenjoy with mashed potatoes

What inspires the most Jollibee loyalty? In a word: Chickenjoy. Jollibee’s marquee menu item, fried chicken – boiled first, then deep-fried – imparts a crackling, briny skin as craggy as volcanic rock, bite after crunchy bite. Jollibee serves theirs in KFC-style buckets, with a side of silky, savory gravy. I ordered a two-piece thigh and leg, which were perfectly battered, tender and juicy. This was by far the standout, and I recommend the mashed potatoes side with that gravy, a creamy (if slightly runny) counterbalance to Chickenjoy’s saltiness.

A plate of spaghetti noodles drenched in a sweet, ketchuplike meat sauce, sliced hot dogs and ham chunks, Jolly Spaghetti is considered party food in the Philippines. The sauce is rumored to be banana ketchup, although Jollibee’s spokesperson insisted it wasn’t when asked. I won’t lie: After reading the dish’s ingredients, I expected something like Skyline Chili’s sweet-spiced, Cincinnati-style chili spaghetti, but it tasted more like a high-school cafeteria special. It’s hot dogs and ham were flavorless hunks, and the medley cries out for thinner noodles.

Jollibee’s entry in the chicken-sandwich wars, added this summer, is the Chickenwich, a crunchy specimen that’s hand-breaded twice and served on a toasted brioche bun. For the sake of variety, I ordered the spicy version, which is topped with sriracha mayo and sliced jalapenos for added heat. Mine ranked on par with Popeye’s viral handheld but surpassed Wendy’s version and Burger King’s Ch’King sandwich. It came with a generous, tender chicken breast fillet that gave a flavorful snap. The bun was soft but held up nicely.

Cheesy Yumburger with cheese and French fries

It’s hard to describe the flavor of Jollibee’s cheeseburger (even after reading its famous tagline, “langhap-sarap,” a word meaning “delicious aroma” in Tagalog), but this griddled ground-beef patty is an acquired taste. Unwrapping my sandwich, the burger’s single slice of American cheese looked half-melted, but its pinkish, pineapple-y sweet Yum Sauce rescued the burger’s bland flavors. (The thin snack fries tasted like McDonald’s and – also like McDonald’s – hardened into cardboard matchsticks within minutes.) I didn’t try it, but the chain also serves hamburger steaks (or Salisbury steak), smothered in gravy and topped with button mushrooms.

You’ll probably compare Jollibee’s peach-mango pie against McDonald’s apple pie, but Jollibee handily wins this matchup. Inside the slender box that housed my dessert, the fried pie showed promise with perfectly golden, bubbled crust. The texture of pies was equal parts flaky and gooey, with probably more peach flavor than mango, but it tasted like subtropical South Florida in a sleeve.