Lunch at Jollibee in Queens

62-29 Roosevelt Avenue, Woodside, Queens

Jollibee is an American-style fast food chain from the Philippines. There are currently 26 locations in the United States, but only one east of Las Vegas, and it's in Woodside, Queens.

Located conveniently on the LIRR and 7-Line Woodside stop, this restaurant opened this past February to much fanfare. The interior has a McDonalds feel, albeit with a much more colorful color scheme.

When was the last time you saw Ronald McDonald depicted inside a McDonalds? He seems rather phased out these days. In contrast, Jollibee's logo, the Jollibee, a red and yellow bee with a chef's hat is all over the establishment, including in life size outside.

The menu is divided between four types of entrées: Chicken, spaghetti, burgers, and traditional Filipino. The chicken has the largest focus, with twice as menu boards as anything else. It is available with just about anything else on the menu, from fries to rice to spaghetti.

Spaghetti dishes are available with toppings such as a tomato sauce with hot pieces and a shrimp sauce. The burgers include ones typical of McDonalds and an "Aloha Burger" which is a burger with bacon and pineapple. There is also a small traditional section consisting of beef patties with rice and egg rolls (listed as "coming soon").

What's interesting is that this Jollibee practices, what I like to call "burger stacking" - the practice of filling up a display case with burgers without an actual order being attached. This used to be common across the fast food industry, but has long fallen out of favor to the "made to order" mentality. Besides burgers, the various chicken and pasta dishes were also stacked.

One other location I had witnessed this was Chick-fil-A Express at NYU. To be fair, at both these restaurants the demand was so great that the prepared food probably didn't bask in the case for more than five minutes.

I ordered a Aloha Burger Combo, consisting of the pineapple-topped burger, fries, and a drink. Even though my burger had been anxiously awaiting me in the display case for five minutes, I still had to wait another five minutes or so for the next batch of fries to be ready.

This Jollibee has self-serve soda fountains, a feature usually reserved for suburban and rural fast food locations. Unfortunately there was no ketchup pump (a big plus in my mind), so I had to manually squeeze out several ketchup packets onto my burger's wrapper.

The Aloha Burger was certainly a unique experience, thanks to the pineapple. The sweet taste was not earth shattering, so I would not recommend against it. After all, pineapple on pizza is not totally uncommon, so why not try it on a burger? The burger itself was larger than it looked on the display board, which was a pleasant surprise to me, as I was very hungry and concerned about this while ordering.

One downside to eating a pineapple burger? Just like pineapple anything, that fruit gets stuck in your teeth. I think it should come with a toothpick attached - that would be a good gesture.

All in all, I recommend giving Jollibee a shot. As I often say on this blog, it's a pleasant alternative to McDonalds and the other common fast food chains.