If you’re looking for traditional Honduran food, Pollo K-Tracho is a hell of a fine place to start.
Open off Western Avenue for about a year, the restaurant has a full menu of Honduran staples like banana leaf-wrapped nacatamales, boiled egg-topped tacos, coconut-tinged conch soup, and various fried meats arranged on beds of tajadas, with as many things made in-house as possible, from its soursop, maracuya, and nance juices to the incredible flour tortillas wrapping your baleadas.
The wee strip mall space, which flies a huge map of Honduras over its vermilion wall, is owned by Carla Ramirez and her parents, mom Calixta from Honduras, and papa Jose, from Nicaragua. The family opened Pollo K-Tracho about a year ago, in an attempt to do for Honduran food what they did for the Nicaraguan eating experience at their restaurant across the street, Sabores Nicaragüenses.
“We were thinking of opening another Nicaraguan restaurant,” Carla tells L.A. TACO. “But I've gone to different Honduran restaurants, and I usually would try them once, and then I wouldn't go back because of the same thing: They would be lacking seasoning or something here or there. So we thought about it. I'm like, ‘Why don't we just open one up?’"
The family Ramirez dubbed their restaurant Pollo K-Tracho, centering it around the classic Honduran fried chicken of the same name (pollo catracho, aka pollo chuco, “catracho” being a colloquial term for Hondurans); one that has instant resonance for the Honduran community.
“Like anyone that sees 'pollo cataracho,' they know exactly what it is,” Carla says. “Well, anyone who's from Honduras knows what it is.”
At K-Tracho, you can order the fried chicken as a breast or a leg. Obviously, we chose leg, which came as a massive golden brown shank of leg and thigh, still connected at the joint. The chicken comes nestled in with a blanket of cabbage mixed with pico de gallo-like chimol and a mass of the fried plantains known as tajadas. Everything is drizzled in a pale-yellow, Thousand Island-ish sauce made here in the kitchen.
Both seasoned and battered with spices, including the requisite cumin, plus oregano, garlic, paprika, and achiote, and fried in soy oil, the fried bird was crispy, juicy, and full of sweetly spiced flavors, without any perceptible greasiness. Lots of bone-adjacent crags and meaty valleys await us, more fastidious eaters to snip at, incisors bared in public. The trio of crisp chicken, creamy cabbage, and fried plantains, when it all comes together in a bite, is out of this world.
“There's different types of ways to make it, “ Carla says. “But we believe that the way we make it is the best way, of course. And like I said, I've tried it in different places.”
Our meal began with thin totopos (corn chips) doused in a rich, roasted tomato sauce, sprinkled with salty cheese, and served with a plastic jug of spicy, red pickled onions. We didn’t plan to eat the whole basket, but could not control what could not be controlled. This was paired with a massive cup of soursop juice, made in-house, and proudly without the use of powders or syrups. Not sure that can be said for the bottles of Salvadoran cola champagne, Guatemalan Chocosula, and Honduran Tropical in the cold case by the register.
New taco unlocked! Because we are, of course, contractually obligated to also try the Honduran tacos. These resemble the taquitos of Mexican cuisine, two Yosemite Sam-sized dynamite sticks of deep-fried masa packed tightly with braised chicken and topped with hard-boiled egg slices and a salad of cheese, cabbage, and chimol (Honduran Pico de Gallo salsa). The restaurant has these tortillas de maíz made to certain specifications by an outside vendor. The shell shatters, bringing you into a realm of stewy, home-cooked comfort.
“That would be street food in Honduras,” Carla says. "It's something that is everywhere. On the streets or in a small farmer's market. So whenever you would be at a bus stop, that's what you would get. Anyone going home from work, they would stop by and get a taco. And they has to be big like this."
Our favorite bite at K-Tracho came in the form of baleadas, Honduras’ famous breakfast dish of soft flour tortillas smeared with refried red beans, and served with your choice of meat, often with cheese, cream, and egg. We had ours with chorizo and “con todo,” which meant avocado, scrambled egg, sour cream, and melted cheese. It was essentially the best breakfast burrito we could ask for, served as an open-seamed taco.
What really pushed the baleada into the stratosphere for us was its snappy, soft, buttery, and thick flour tortilla, which Ramirez tells us is made in house using vegetable shortening in place of lard.
The baleada is just one example of K-Tracho’s commitment to excellence, offering a handcrafted taste of Honduras with a homemade touch in a kitchen staffed only by Hondureñas.
“We try to do our best,” Carla says. “We always make sure to keep all the recipes and seasonings up to date, so that everything has the same taste all the time. We keep trying our food to make sure that we're giving original food from Honduras, that tastes like Honduras.”
Pollo K-Tracho ~ 1905 S. Western Ave. Ste 11 Los Angeles, CA 90018
