As I said on Instagram:
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Cheers my man! (Sorry about Jollibee!)
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Now that Iām two vodkas into the evening, I can say that Iāve warmed up to my experience but overall would not affect my scoring (2-2.5 stars out of 5). Iāll be writing my review tomorrow and I only know half of what Iām going to say, but Iām just disappointed. The chicken looked so good and was so crispy but it didnāt taste of anything. The gravy was absolutely disgusting and unnecessary. The fries were a lost cause. The Spaghetti, oh my God, was incredibly awful. Yet I kept eating that Spaghetti. Maybe it was because we were starving after an eight hour hard labor experience.
I wanted so badly to like this place. I have three coworkers who live in Edison and talk about it frequently. But unless I was drunk out of my mind and Ubering on past, I would NEVER eat here again.
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A dad in Edison means visits to the wine/liquor department at the Costco in Edison, Iād imagineā¦ 
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I think Jollibee is like your momās cooking. Iāve eaten some pretty terrible food made by someoneās mom that is a family favorite.
Actually I donāt like my own momās cooking so maybe I am missing that gene.
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Hereās my full review. #287.
Do you think saying āHave a jolly day!ā to hundreds of customers over the course of a shift would cause one to be suicidal? While not as forced and tacky as āWelcome to Moeās!ā, employees of Jollibee do just that to every single customer in their drive-through line (and presumably inside when inside dining is available). While I detected a tinge of joy in the gentlemanās voice as he greeted our car with well-wishes and then sent us on our way with more, I just had to feel bad for the guy repeating the same script over and over again. I donāt usually review chains and even more rare than that tackle fast food, but since Jollibee is relatively new and causing quite a commotion, I could not pass up the opportunity to stop by while driving through the Edison area. In some ways, the place is like a cartoon. The renaming of chicken as āChickenjoyā, the brandās logo, and of course the āHave a jolly day!ā all will make you feel that you are not just paying for food, but for an experience. And how was the food, you may be wondering? Well, some reviews really do write themselves.
Jollibee is known for two things: fried chicken and spaghetti, but more so of the former. They are a wildly popular Filipino chain that is slowly making its way into the United States. While anyone could go for their fried chicken, some of the other menu items are more of an acquired taste. However, given the demographics of Edison, this was a great place to put a Jollibee. There is almost every kind of food known to civilization in the area, so why not a restaurant where you can get pasta topped with hot dogs and call it a ācultural experienceā? That brings me to an important note in this review: there is a difference between ānot goodā and ānot my thingā. While the meal you are about to read about is not exactly reviewed with positivity, there are probably equal numbers of people who would agree with me as there are who would dive right in. Where do we start?
Letās begin with the reason why most people go, and that is the fried chicken. Justin and I had just finished helping his dad move and were exhausted after seven hours of physical labor. We wanted something to take the edge off our hunger without necessarily going crazy. So, we ordered a three-piece chicken combo to share as well as the āJolly Spaghettiā. The chicken itself would end up being fine, although there was not much flavor to speak of. As salty as it was, it did not taste of anything. This was a shame, because the pieces were dinosaur-like in size, meaty, and very tender. The outer layer of breading was crispy and not greasy at all. It looked and smelled amazing. Then came the first bite, and it was a let down. We should have ordered a smaller size (judging by the menu at quick glance, the increments are one piece, two, three, six, and ten).
Our side was a toss-up between rice and fries, and I stupidly chose fries. They were cold, limp, soggy, and gross. I ate two or three: one au naturale and the other dipped into a brown gravy-like concoction they gave on the side. This was gag-inducing, and the worst component of the entire meal. It was thick, lukewarm, and tasted like flour, water, and Gravy MasterāI suppose the gravy could find a home covering a Thanksgiving dinner at Rikers Island.
And now to the āJolly Spaghettiā, which was anything but jolly unless you are a five-year-old who was just given run of the kitchen and thinks that under-cooked pasta, sweet ketchup-like tomato sauce, shredded cheese, and chopped up bits of hot dogs was a good idea. The spaghetti itself was so long and so al dente that perhaps I could have hung myself with a strand of itā maybe right next to the guy that has to say āHave a jolly day!ā a million times. The sauce was literally like ketchup, both in the amount of sugar and its consistency. The cheese might as well have come from another planet. The hot dogs were an interesting touch. Some pieces of it were tiny cubes while others were more pronounced slices that made it possible to determine that they were actually hot dogs. Since eating this, I have read that there was also ground beef and ham in the sauce in addition to the hot dogs. Iām not feeling any better.
If it was 4 AM after a night of heavy drinking, self-loathing, and the need to punish oneself even further, the Jolly Spaghetti may be just what the doctor ordered. Even Justin and I, in between chews and complaints over how gnarly this was, found ourselves going back for more. It was eerily addicting. We actually finished more of this than the chicken. Maybe it was because we were starving. Maybe it was the obvious sugar in the sauce. Either way, that pasta is like an oncoming train wreck: you donāt want to see it but you cannot turn away either.
āCultural thingā or not, I have a hard time with most of what I ate today. This comes from someone who has eaten at authentic Filipino restaurants and actually enjoys something called Dinuguan (look it up). So you canāt say that I donāt understand or I am being harsh with something I am not used to. I have four or five coworkers who live in Edison and have talked about the massive car lines to get in (some upwards of two hours). Jollibee can be considered quite a phenomenon because of this, but that does not make me want to try it again. The fact that the chicken was really perfectly cooked despite being tasteless saves their score, which I am putting at 2 out of 5 stars . It is what it is.
Originally posted here on my blog.
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I just said out loud āItās all that sugar!ā
This is one of my favorite reviews of yours EVER.
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Other than your choice to use the word suicide in your opening, it was an interesting take on a personal experience with more than the average restaurant experiences under ones belt.
Your review reminded me of a optometrist experience I had last year. The word trust was in their business name and they were anything but. 
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Fun to read your perspective. I think I would go and get a small order just for the whole jolly experience.
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Did you order the regular chicken or the spicy? Iāve only gotten the spicy. I am pretty sure that they inject it with marinade because there is always an area where the spicyness is more intense, and on some pieces you can see a dot in this area.
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Regular. I didnāt realize they had spicy until I was driving away. Kicked myself for that one because I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more.
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Just for you I took the dive today. Fascination is not a word I would use. 
Ordered the burger and the spicy fried chicken.
The burger took me right back to a memorable Public School lunch in Brooklyn in the late 70ās. I could have sworn I was eating a mystery salisbury steak that had been sitting in some steam table for a few weeks and then taken out to cool off before serving. The bun was equally miserable. Blech.
The fried chicken was fine and if there were a bucket sitting by me at some picnic I would eat it. I would not go out of my way to order it again, however. IMO, my local Stop and Shop does it better.
Zero chance I would try that spaghetti abomination, but Iām glad Greg did.
As a side note at 12:30 today there were only a couple cars in line. I only hope that everyone else who used to choke those drive thru lanes was eating better food.
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I drove by today and the drive-thru line was two lanes backing all the way out to the street. It looked like a rush hour traffic jam.
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Amazing how popular this place is.
They now have somebody assigned to putting up cones in front of the entrance as soon as the drive through line queues to the street. When some space frees up, they remove them. Somebody stopped on the road looking to get in while the cones were up, stopping the traffic behind him. He was told to keep moving. How many places wish they had a problem like this, having to turn away business.
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I know a Chic Fil A in Aberdeen MD that could use something like this. My wife and I had to drive down to Falls Church VA a couple of weeks ago and wanted to stop at the Chaps Pit Beef location in Aberdeen on the way down. There was a Chic Fil A on the corner of the block Chaps was on and the entrance to get into it was blocking people from turning onto the road.
Also the sandwiches at Chaps were as good as we remembered from a trip to Baltimore a few years ago so if you are in an area where a Chaps is we would highly recommend stopping at one.
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This is my thread kind of hard not to post this once you read it.
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Oh my!!!
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I guess she didnāt have a jolly day after that one.
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I finally went to one today. A drive through line reminiscent of In N Out and Chick Fil A, at noon on a Friday, mid June.
Iāve only tried the sandwich so far, which was okay, but certainly not better than, and maybe not as good as Popeyeās and Chick Fil A.
I was here for the dark meat fried chicken on the bone, which I may end up describing on a fast food or fried chicken thread. I have professed my love for Popeyeās, but have had a few disappointments with the fried chicken lately. I havenāt had their sandwich in a while, but thatās not why i went there.
BTW; What anā¦eclectic menu is described in various reviews! I donāt know if everything is offered here in this Fairfield, CA place, and I think we have some serious Filipino influence where this place is. Iād love to learn more about how their menus evolved.
I had to ask the employeeā¦āwaitā¦did you say gravy?ā. She said āItās good.ā. I said ābut not on it, right?ā. Comes in a separate container. Shades of 60ās-70ās KFC!
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