A THREE-PART ADVENTURE IN VIETNAMESE SOUP
PART 1 PART 2 PART 3
As mentioned a while back, I’d like to try some exotic menu items before shuffling off. Can’t afford to travel, but my mouth wants to see the world — beef wellington, borscht, chicken gizzards, frog legs, hossenfeffer, kishka, lengua (tongue), pho, piroshki, pizza with anchovies, poke, pork brains scrambled with eggs, pupusa, scrapple, turtle soup, Welsh rarebit, and wilted lettuce salad are all on my list, and pho was next up.
I decided on Phở Thu Thủy in White Center, not from reading reviews at Yelp, but because it’s right at a bus stop. That’s the definition of easy walking distance. My ‘research’ was having asked a guy as he came out, “Was it good?” and he said yes, so there I was on Tuesday.
The restaurant was darkened and locked. Huh. The website says they’re open seven days a week, but I guess Tuesday wasn’t one of those days.
Well, I’d come on the bus specifically for a nice lunch, and I wasn’t taking a bus back home to eat carrots, so I walked a few blocks to the Salvadorean Bakery & Restaurant. It’s also been on my list — see: pupusa, above.
You can’t miss the place, with its big colorful mural on the outside wall. Maybe the mural is to make up for the unimaginative name.
The Salvadorean is a full-service bakery, the fullest-service bakery I’ve seen since living in San Francisco. There’s about a quarter-mile of three-story display racks, with all the cookies and doughnuts and sweet buns and such, plus ethnic pastries, a rack of birthday cakes, and order forms for elaborate wedding cakes. Constitutionally unable to enter a bakery without buying baked goods, I got a pineapple turnover.
Also ordered lunch at the counter, since that’s what I’d come for — specifically, the pupusa. It was new to me, so the combo (one pupusa and one tamale) seemed safer than going all-in on pupusas.
The guy at the counter asked what filling I wanted for the pupusa, and being a piggy man my standard reply is pork. “What about the tamale?” Pork again. “Do you want cheese?” Hell if I know, but most things are better with cheese, so I said yup. He asked my name, and struggled with it. This place is authentic Salvadoran, and I’m guessing there are no Dougs in El Salvador.
Took a seat, in what’s a basic fast-food lobby, with formica tables and wooden chairs. There’s enough Latin American stuff on the walls to be certain you’re not at KFC, but not enough to feel you’ve gone far from the bus stop.
The wait was about fifteen minutes, and I almost missed lunch, because the guy bringing the food wasn’t the same guy who’d taken my order, and he was walking around saying, “Yuj? Yuj?”
“Doug?” I asked.
“Yeah, Yuj,” he explained, and plopped lunch onto my table.
The pupusa was fresh from however they cook it, and very hot. While it cooled, I ate the plate’s generous helpings of yellow spiced rice and pulverized beans. Both were quite tasty, and tastier when I’d nudged them into a single pile.
The tamale was, sadly, a tamale. I’m not a fan of tamales, and it was a mistake to order one. I’d forgotten that the doughy outer layer is always so dull. This tamale had that dull doughy layer, with a tasty porky filling, but you can’t get even a bite of the porky without the dull dough. All the tamales in my life have come wrapped in corn husks, which are inedible, but this tamale was wrapped in something green that I later determined was a banana leaf. I tried it, chewed at it, it chewed back, and I spat it out.
The pupusa, though, was sublime. It’s about the size of a tea saucer, a thin pancake with pork and cheese inside. Not sure how you’re supposed to eat it — I tried using a fork, but the pancake part fell off of the meat, so after a few bites I finished it like a sandwich. It was a fine sandwich, though.
I hadn’t asked for it, but lunch came with a small side of a sliced cabbage concoction that looked like coleslaw but had an unpleasantless to the flavor. Ain’t saying it was bad — presumably it’s comfort food from the old country, but it’s not my old country. It had a metallic and musty undertaste that wasn’t mayonnaised enough for my wimpy American palate.
For dessert, the pineapple turnover was what all turnovers should try to be. The pastry part was fluffy as velour, and sweet and smooth enough to enjoy even if there’d been no filling. But there was filling, twice as much and twice as delectable as you’d expect in a turnover, lumpy with genuine pineapple chunks, and it was utter ecstasy on my tongue. Suddenly, an iffy lunch had become an exclamation point.
Previous Me would’ve bought another half dozen turnovers before leaving — two to share with my flatmates, and four for the fridge and later in the week. At least, that’s what I’d tell myself, but in reality I would’ve eaten one at the bus stop before riding home, and swallowed the other five in my recliner that evening.
New and Improved Me is losing weight, and left without buying a bag of their flaky sugary gooey sticky pineapple deliciousness to go. I am proud of me, but that place will still be dangerous, every time I go back.
Salvadorean Bakery & Restaurant
1719 SW Roxbury St, Seattle (White Center)
Food: good
Dessert: outstanding
Price: reasonable
Service: OK
Transit: #60, #128, #560, RapidRide #H
Verdict: YES, especially the bakery.
2/2/2025
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