Pollos a la Brasa El Chalan

Why go to a chain like Boston Market? This chicken is the best. Get extra Green sauce, because it is awesome! This place is a take out mainly, so you can’t really grade it on it’s service.

Previous reviewer Pete hit the nail on the head pretty nicely, but I’m going to weight in my two cents and second everything he’s saying.
The food at this place is home cooking at its finest – flavorful, plentiful, and a little messy. Expect to use a lot of napkins, and to have them stick to your fingers.
It’s the kind of place where it’s anomalies increase its charm. The entire room is painted a sort of brown mustard color, with big red diner booths around the walls, tables and chairs in the middle. In the back, on top of the refrigerator (which has, among other things, Jarritos), a small TV plays Spanish soap operas. Around the restaurant are posters for various latin events and musicians based in Boston. The place is quirky, but it’s also clean and inviting, and you’ll feel right at home (metaphorically, i mean. Probably not literally at home).
Our waitress who, perhaps, is also one of the owners, was all smiles, extremely friendly and sweet. Her english wasn’t great, but the menu has english translation so you don’t have to speak much to get your order across.
I got two orders of pupusas, and a Half Rotisserie chicken, my roommate got the taco plate. Everything was well done, particularly the pupusas and the chicken. I expected the chicken to be good, having gone to a rotisserie – and it was. Tender and savory, crispy skin and moist meat, well spiced and not too salty.
The pupusas, however, knocked my socks off and sort of came out of left field. The tortillas they make were clearly homemade, not too chewy. They used a liberal amount of cheese, and it came with two sauces and this coleslaw-​like garnish that traditionally seems to be served with the meal. Unbelievable.
After 3 sodas, a taco platter, two large pupusas, half a rotisserie chicken, and an order of flan, our total bill came out to be around 35 bucks. By the end we were eating to maintain our dignity, not because we were still hungry.
This place is a gem, get there.

Got takeout here at their Chelsea location. The whole chicken was moist, delicious and had great spicing. We also got tostones (they were a bit too tough, but decent) and rice.
This meal served four of us and we had plenty left over. They were pretty quick getting it together and the cashier was very nice and made sure we had everything.

On this particular evening of chicken lust, our quest brought us to Chelsea, where we sought someplace that spoke the words «come in here and eat delicious chicken» to us. Behold El Chalan, with its colorful, happy chicken, resplendent in hat and poncho, urging us to do just that — to come inside and feast on his kin.
El Chalan warms my heart. I feel like I have walked into some nice lady’s house, where she has appointed the dining room with gold lamé and artificial flowers and other trappings of modest elegance, all because you are family, and you ought to be treated as such.
Our host, whose English was not perfect, did not exactly know what to do with us two gringos, a little hesitant to assume anything about what we wanted, but we worked it out and found the family-​size chicken dinner we were looking for. She was happy to make substitutions and adjustments as needed.
Our meal was just like, well, whatever I would call my grandmother if she were Peruvian — just like she would have made. The chicken was moist and juicy inside, delectably crisp on the outside, falling off the bone with all the eagerness to be eaten that our friend on the sign outside had implied. The succulent bowl of beans, the sticky white rice, and the fried tostones and yuca conspired to put us in a dream-​like coma of grease, starch, and meat, all washed down with a nice tall glass of passionfruit juice.
Ahhh.
There is something makeshift-​feeling about the place — I don’t think they’ve been there long after expanding from the original East Boston location — but its modesty is charming, and the atmosphere hospitable.
Bring a big appetite, since this is not light fare we’re talking about, and bring nine friends — partly because the web site is currently advertising that the tenth eats free (check ahead to confirm before packing the station wagon) and partly because this just feels like someplace you’d spend two hours stuffing yourself with the family along some Sunday afternoon, so why not go for it?
And possibly the best part was that this humbling feast cost the two of us under $ 20 total. Ah, delicious savings!