vip in the city

Cheap, cheap Pio Pio Riko

We’ve already known Greenpoint to have excellent Polish cuisine, but the area’s sizable Latino population means that food from countries south of the border shines here as well.

In 2006, popular Sunnyside joint Pio Pio Riko opened a location on Greenpoint’s Manhattan Avenue.  Like the original, this Peruvian restaurant and steak house specializes in pollo a la brasa, i.e., spit-roasted chicken; the front of the restaurant prominently displays racks of rotisserie chicken slowly rotating behind a glass-doored oven.

Pio Pio Riko’s menu features poultry, steak and seafood, including such Peruvian staples such as ceviche and plantains.  Tonight, though, we were here just for the chicken.

We munched on handfuls of the complimentary cancha (salted, toasted kernels of maize) from a bowl set on the red and white topped tables — one of several conspicuous displays of Peruvian pride.  In the background, the flat-screen television played — of all things — Showgirls.

The plate of quarter-chicken with white rice and red beans was a terrific value at under $5: all crisp skin and tender, moist meat, chunks of which we dipped greedily into the irresistibly creamy, spicy house ají sauce.  (Bonus plátano maduro courtesy of B’s plate.)

Pio Pio Riko is not related to the well-loved Pio Pio in Jackson Heights, the Upper East Side, the Bronx, the Upper West Side… or any of the seven Pio Pio branches throughout the city.  RM once remarked (with only slight exaggeration) that all Peruvian chicken places are called “pío pío” — the Spanish interpretation of a chirping chick sound.  Cuter and catchier than “coc co co coc” — Spanish for “cluck cluck” — or “kikirikí kikirikí,” which is Spanish for “cock-a-doodle-doo.”

Tags: Brooklyn, Greenpoint, Pio Pio Riko, roast chicken