A THREE-PART ADVENTURE IN VIETNAMESE SOUP
PART 1 PART 2 PART 3
The pho had been no-go at Phở Thu Thủy the day before, but I’m never one to learn from mistakes. I doublechecked their website, and it still says they’re open seven days a week, so I rode the bus and walked up to the door… which was still locked.
Maybe they’re on vacation, but there’s no sign saying so. Maybe they’re out of business, but it sure looks like a working restaurant through the windows. Maybe the staff is mostly undocumented, and they’ve scattered to avoid a Trump immigration raid. Whatever, there’d be no pho for me on this fine day.
There’s a Mexican place next door, though, where I ate my first Seattle burrito after moving back in 2022. It was disappointing, and I’ve never been back, but I’ve had burritos from several other Seattle taquerias, and they’re all disappointing. See, I lived in San Francisco for several years, and nobody who’s lived in California gets anything but disappointment ordering a burrito anywhere else.
There’s more to Mexican cuisine than burritos, though, so I gave Birrieria y Rosticeria El Paisano a second try. I don’t speak or read Spanish, but Google Translate helpfully tells me the name means, “Birrieria and Rosticeria El Paisano.”
I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to sit at a table and wait for a waitress, or order at the counter, and I remembered being unsure about the same thing when I’d eaten there the first time. Only saw one employee, a middle-aged lady who said hello to me, but she was in the midst of an extended conversation in Spanish with another lady, so I didn’t inquire about the protocol.
Instead I grabbed a menu from the pile by the register, and sat at a table. Soon as I’d sat, I noticed a sign under the counter, that said, “Order here,” not only in plain English but in big letters. How did I miss it?
The menus are colorful and under plastic, but the prices have been taped over and re-taped over. A handwritten number on a bit of masking tape is cheaper and easier than reprinting the whole menu every time prices go up. The numbers were smudged, though, and I wasn’t wearing my glasses, wasn’t sure whether what I wanted was $15 or $19. But who cares about four bucks?
I ordered the Enchiladas Tapiala, or that’s what I wrote in my notebook, but that’s at least doubly mistaken. First off, I was expecting fish, but no, that’s talapia, not tapiala, and apparently tapiala is a word that doesn’t exist. Damn, I remember writing it very slowly, too, letter by letter into my notebook, and still I screwed up.
Looking at their menu online, the closest match is Enchiladas Tapatias, but the description says it’s “tortillas in a red adobo sauce filled with Mexican cheese and onions or chicken. Served with rice, beans, lettuce, sour cream, and cheese,” and that’s not quite what I got.
What I got was amazing, though. I gasped when I saw the plate, because the food was piled so high. I’m a man for whom quantity matters, and this was a lot of lunch.
There were three substantially-sized enchiladas, but no “red abodo sauce,” and they were filled with pork, not chicken. The enchiladas were excellent — hot, moist, cheezy, oozing goop, and porky, and pork beats chicken any day.
As promised, they were served with rice, beans, lettuce, sour cream, and cheese. The lettuce had large pieces of raw onion mixed in, which added crispy crunch and flavor. Plain white rice is empty carbs, and I’ve never understood the appeal, but this was fancy rice, yellowy and with some spicing. It was stellar, and the accompanying bean mulch had a kick to it, too.
Most astounding and unexpectedly, my plate also held a pyramid of loose, hot, flavorful pork. Mass quantities of loose pig meat. I wouldn’t have complained if the pork had been the main entree, but the main entree was the tortillas. This was just an unannounced side, 10-12 pieces of the meat, each about ¾ of an inch around. Everything on the plate was very good, but the pork was the pinnacle of what pork should be.
The service, let’s admit, was basically nil. Factoring in wait time and eat time, I was in the restaurant for about 40 minutes, and the lady who’d taken my order never checked on me, and never stopped talking in Spanish with the other lady. There were no other customers until my last few minutes, and she only interrupted the conversation long enough to take their orders, same as she had with me. Then she went back to the long talk with that lady in the dining room, like they’re old buddies who hadn’t seen each other in for evah.
If the atmosphere matters, Birrieria y Rosticeria El Paisano offers low-key Mexican knickknacks, an empty display case, and lots of free Jesus tracts by the window. There’s a TV over the cash register, which subtracts from the ambiance, but the volume was off.
The total tab was $22, a good deal these days, especially since I’d also ordered a glass of horchata. And the horchata was great — smooth, sweet, creamy, tart, and icy cold to match the service.
Birrieria y Rosticeria El Paisano
9615 15th Ave SW, Seattle (White Center)
Food & drink: excellent
Price: good
Service: sub-par
Transit: #60, #128, #560, RapidRide #H
Verdict: YES.
2/5/2025
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