The Rooster Rotisserie and Grill

I usually pick a whole chicken up with Parisienne potatoes. Not a bad price ~14 for a whole chicken alone. But they’re pretty small. My boyfriend can finish their whole chicken in one sitting, and he’s an average sized guy.
Definitely tastes better than your local Walmart/​Metro rotisserie chicken!

OMG… Seriously. The cook went and took the two carpets from the inside, and shook off the dirt upwind from the diners in the patio area. Then, he went back to cutting up chicken without washing his hands.
I’ve been a regular here, but no more. Their food isn’t amazing, but tolerable at the price point, but this disgusting act did it for me.
I’ll go elsewhere where I think (hope) their employees wash their hands after doing cleaning work. Be warned, dine there at your own peril. (I’d give this place negative stars if possible.)

It was my first time to visited this place, I found out that the service is good, and the chicken is perfect, especially with pasta salad and potato ball. I will want to visit again.

I cannot recommend this place highly enough. Amazing value for money, great Portuguese food.
Great chicken, and the rice is amazing.
A half chicken dinner, with a mountain of rice and potatoes is under 12 dollars.
I am yet to try their sandwiches, but they look great.

Prices are amazing for the portions that you get. It’s best for picking up take out on the way home when you just don’t feel like cooking.
The fish dinner (with rice and potatoes as sides) is great. Chicken is delicious but can be slightly dry at times.
The only downside is how cramped it can get while ordering and the service is usually rushed and a little on the grumpy side. But that doesn’t stop me from popping in every few weeks.

Large portions for a good price. I can can 2 – 3 meals out of a single order.

I stop here quite often on my way home from the gym to grab dinner to take home.
The food is pretty good. It´s a little bit pricey for take out. You do get a large portion however, but a half rotisserie chicken with two sides comes to $ 11 with tax and some of the other take out dinners are even more. Should really cost $ 9 or $ 10 for takeout.
The chicken is okay, as others mentioned its a bit inconsistent, sometimes a bit dry.
Also the employees can be a little crotchety and basically seem unhappy to be working, not all of them but every day I go there is at least one really grumpy seeming person. I asked for the broccoli salad once and the guy gave me a side of broccoli instead, when I corrected him he became very irritated.
Overall it´s okay but I mainly go here for the convenience as it just happens to be located on my path home.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this place.
It’s not the best churasqueria in Toronto, but it’s high up their in terms of an easy in the area meal. The chicken can be a little over cooked depending on time of day and turnover, but at that price, it’s a little expected. The portions are really exceptional here so beware of that. My first time i ordered wayyy to much.
Why i like it over other places is because it’s not just chicken — they have a larger protein selection like ribs, fish, etc. Makes for great takeout.

The Rooster, which up until somewhat recently was called Sardinia, makes me break all my food rules. I always order the chicken breast rotisserie chicken dinner. For starters, I don’t like meat with bones in it but since that’s the only way to get rotisserie chicken I make an exception. The chicken is delicious and juicy and the piri piri sauce is a must! Secondly, I don’t normally eat white rice or potatoes but I usually end up getting both since I don’t have the luxury of having The Rooster very often (I used to live in the area so I’d get it all the time with healthier sides, but I digress) My personal recommendation is for the tomato potatoes which are roasted and delicious, but you can’t go wrong with the lemon potatoes or even the fried potatoes. Service is quick even though this wee little corner place is always super busy, so busy in fact if you get there after 7 your side choices can sometimes be rather limited since they make everything fresh. Cops love it here and there’s often officers lining up to get their Rooster on. This place gets bonus points for always making Bloor/​Delaware smell like hot sauce. Minimal seating, so get it to go unless you enjoy eating in cramped tiny places.

Very good portion sizes and price. The chicken tasted good but I’ve had better in the area. The biggest pull for me is the low prices and large portion sizes.

I am on quest to find the best Portuguese chicken in the Toronto area. I decided to give this place a try after seeing it while on a TTC bus. I arrived to order their half chicken dinner with 2 sides, total came out to $ 9.95 including tax. The meal came in a circular tin container.
Review of the chicken
The chicken is nothing special, just your typical rotisserie chicken, the meat was a little too dry compared to the other Portuguese chicken places I have tried.
The potatoes were ok, lacked flavor but I liked it because it wasn’t too greasy.
The rice was surprisingly good though, lots of flavour.
The hot sauce tasted like it was commercially made, nothing special.
Overall I give this place a 3 because of the extremely large portions, and somewhat decent meal. I wouldn’t go out of my way again to eat here but if I am in the area I would give this place a try again.

I was expecting moist and succulent Portuguese roasted chicken after reading Unilocal reviews, especially since that seems to be their specialty, but what I got was nothing close to that. Yes, the half chicken dinner was indeed dirt cheap, but I don’t think I will be coming back again. It was just so dry that it was hard to swallow and almost choked. The potatoes, however, were good though. If you plan on ordering the chicken, make sure you order a drink or two to help you wash it down. Trust me, you’ll need it.
Also I don’t understand why a Portuguese place is also selling Moussaka and Lasagna. I don’t think those menu items are Portuguese.

We had the chicken it was good but found that the chicken from College st much better. The potatoes where just a bit under cooked, the rice was great most and very tasty. The service was perfect super fast very friendly.

This place really doesn’t look that great, the queue to line up doesn’t make sense as it abruptly turns, the menu is in a place that you can see it when you walk in, but if you are lining up you might go under it and then can’t see it.
However, the chicken is good and cheap. For just a little more than your Wal-​Mart/​No-​Frills chicken, you get something a lot better. And the hot sauce is hot for me, but it’s so tasty. I did find the chicken breast a bit dry though, someone else said this is hit and miss.
Also said by ScottM is why there is Portuguese chicken and things like Moussaka (Greek)? That doesn’t make sense to me.
Nevertheless, for a quick dinner I’d stop by here in a heartbeat to get a good meal. The potato balls are great too, that’s because they fried!

I mentioned that I went here to some folks in the neighbourhood and they were very excited to hear my opinion… unfortunately though, I didn’t have anything good to say. The person who served me (possibly the owner) pretty much mumbled the whole time. I had a half chicken and declined the hot sauce. I do notice all the mentions about the hot sauce and maybe I regret not going for that, but what I really could have used was chalet sauce. The white meat was super-dry…really not what I was expecting from a «specialty» chicken place that looks like it’s been around for a while. Have to say this was super disappointing.
The potatoes were good though.

As soon as you walk into Sardinha it’s clear to see that these people know chicken. If you try to buy their food near the end of the night, it’s not unusual for them to refuse because they don’t to serve subpar quality chicken. These people really care about their product! Having said that, as delicious as the chicken is, it’s that chickpea and bean salad that is seriously underrated!
Their service is efficient, and always super friendly and helpful. Great quality for the price, that’s for sure! And don’t forget the hot sauce!

Why might you ask is Swiss Chalet still in business? It’s because there isn’t a Swiss Chalet next door.
Amazing and extremely reasonably priced.

Hit and miss.
Some days the chickens are of decent size, deliciously succulent and juicy and the potatoes are nice and crispy.
Some days the chickens are tiny and dry and the potatos taste obviously frozen and soggy. The rice is always bland, but nothing a little hot sauce can’t perk up.
The employees can be a little surley but I don’t blame them. It’s always so hot and crowded in here. There is always a line-​up. Not as good as the joints on college street (imo) but it’ll do the trick if you’re in the mood for portuguese chicken. Also pretty cheap so that’s a plus. 3 and a half stars.

Un excellent restaurant portugais avec du poulet grillé de grande qualité, des filets de poisson et tout ce que vous voudrez en accompagnement. Vous pouvez manger sur place mais la très grande majorité y passé pour des plats à emporter.

This place is just friggin’ ridiculous. It’s not the best Portuguese-​style roasted chicken I’ve had (that honour belongs to Romados — but it applies the same philosophy of ridiculous portions for dirt cheap.) But the first clue to its lack of flavour is that nearly everyone doused the chicken heavily with what tastes like diluted Frank’s Red Hot.
But ya — so I ordered a ½ chicken dinner — which comes with a choice of two sides. So I pick the rice and point at a random pasta salad as I’m too hungry to really care. The lady is filling up my styrofoam takeout tray and asks, «Why didn’t you pick the roasted potato? You don’t like potato?»
Bit of an odd question, but I stammer back, «Sure — I like potatoes»
She then asks if I would like to try some (my tray is already heavy with rice and salad) and she heaps on a huge helping of potatoes before I can firmly answer one way or the other. Slap on my half chicken and a generous squirt of hot sauce and you have the best bang-​for-​buck meal I’ve seen in Toronto so far. $ 9 for enough food to feed a family — and I’m not exaggerating — I saw a couple and their two kids eating out of one tray.
My takeout tray was so full, I had to eat at the limited tables they have for fear of have the contents of my fat and carb box exploding while in transport. So I ate and since I was sitting and eating anyways — I decided I was going to have my meal in the restaurant.
So I eat… and eat… and eat. I am a heavy-​set man (read: ‘fat bastard’) and even starting hitting the wall about ¹⁄₃ of the way through the box. So I packed it up and wandered home in a food daze carrying what would pass for a full meal at other places.
The chicken was pretty moist and definitely a cut above Swiss Chalet — but it really not fantastic chicken (come on — the hot sauce pretty ‘meh’ and a cover-​up IMO). But boy, is this place cheap.

I was hungry when I was strolling along Bloor Street and I got more hungry when I walked by Sardinha Rei Dos Frangos and saw all the chicken roasting and cooking on the grill!
Looking at the menu through the window and I saw Quarter Leg ($ 3.10) and with enough change in my pocket, I knew what I were going to snack on.
Nice lady put my chicken in the bag and drowned it with hot sauce even before I have a chance to tell her I want to eat that here! So I was enjoying my chicken which was really tender and juicy (Yay! Dark Meat!!), watching people lining up for take out… Curiously, almost all of them were male!
I smelled like Chicken after eating the chicken since Sardinha has open kitchen and I guess smelling like chicken was not too bad!