Yelpers and some people I know tell me that Husky Delicatessen makes fine fancy sandwiches. I’d studied the menu online and decided on ham on rye, and boarded the #128 to get there.

Being a hermit, I knew better than going to a deli on a weekday near lunch time — too many people, long lines, and sandwich prep that’s all stressed and rushed and maybe not the best. Thinking myself all smart, I went on a lazy Sunday, well after lunch time. But even a couple of blocks away, the sidewalks were teeming with humans, my least favorite species.

There was some sort of dratted street fair going on, throngs of people all over the neighborhood. Community is a wonderful thing, but it’s gotta be mutual, and I wasn’t feeling it.

I elbowed my way half a block down California Ave, unavoidably (well, somewhat avoidably) bumping against people all the way, and looked into the window of the deli. Looks like a great place, but there must’ve been fifty people inside, and there’s only one small counter for eating at, with perhaps a dozen seats. Of course, every seat had a butt on it, and other butts were standing and waiting.

To get a sandwich, I’d have to fight for it, fight my way in, fight my way out. I’m an eater, not a fighter, so lunch at Husky Deli was cancelled.

In a distinctly unpleasant mood, I fled the mobs and walked a few blocks south, to reach an uncrowded bus stop for my ride back. I’d come for a quiet lunch, but West Seattle had sprung a beer commercial at me, everyone laughing and backslapping everyone else. I’m not a beer commercial.

My return bus ride was on an empty belly, and I muttered in a back seat. I’d left home expecting a nice meal, and I was not going home to eat something from my fridge or pantry. That’s no way to live a retirement. Didn’t know where I’d be lunching, but having lunch at some restaurant somewhere was now a moral imperative.

Hmmm. I’ve been living on Seattle’s west side for almost three years, so I know the area fairly well, and ran through some old reliables in my mind — Smokey’s Char-Broiled? Nope, they’re closed on Sundays. Young’s? They’re good, but all the times I’ve been there, I drove. Now I don’t have a car, their location wasn’t precisely certain to me, and with no internet or GPS in my pocket, that meant nope again.

Ah, but then I remember El Super Pollo. It’s a Mexican place on 4th Avenue, with a cheery egg-and-rooster mural on the sloping roof. I’d eaten there once before, had a perfectly acceptable burrito and chips.

Also, El Super Pollo translates to The Super Chicken, and Jay Ward’s Super Chicken was one of my favorite cartoons.

The show’s theme song hit me, and a beam of sunlight literally burst through the clouds. My seat on the bus got so bright I had to squint. It was an omen, so I transferred to a #131 bus, and lunched at El Super Pollo.

Walking in, a lady behind the counter asked if I was waiting for the rest of my party. “Nope, it’s just me,” I said, same as I’ve been saying to waitresses at restaurants for a long, long time. She offered a booth by the window, and a menu.

I wasn’t in a Mexican mood, but they also have American options — breakfasts and burgers and such. A different waitress came to take my order, and I asked for a “Classic cheeseburger,” a side salad, and coffee.

She asked a question I couldn’t understand, and I answered, “No thanks, I’m fine.” The staff speaks mostly Spanish, which means your food’s going to be authentically Mexican, but I don’t know what it means if you’re having a burger.

The restaurant has a big-screen TV, which is always a minus, but despite being Sunday afternoon it wasn’t showing football. Couldn’t quite make out what inanity was on. It looked like jabbering celebrities, unknown to me. Fortunately, there’s only one TV, far away and with the volume so low I couldn’t hear it.

The coffee came immediately, and it was good. I take it with cream, and the waitress left a bowl full of plastic one-ounce creamers, in three flavors.

Where do you stand, dear reader, on the plastic creamers controversy? They’re horrendous for the environment, and I take two or three ounces of cream, so with every cup of coffee and every refill, two or three plastic mini-tubs are sent to rot forever in a landfill. An actual jug of cream is so much better for the world.

But I do love the hazelnut creamer, in the plastic.

My burger and salad came maybe five minutes after the coffee, both on the same plate. The salad had tomato bits, onions, two cheeses, and a mildly sweet white dressing unfamiliar to me. There wasn’t enough of the salad, though, maybe ten small forkfuls when I’d hoped for twenty, and since it was on the burger plate there was checkerboard paper under the salad, which made the forkplay strange and the paper soggy.

The burger came with tomato, onions, mayo, and maybe more condiments I didn’t notice. No mustard or ketchup to squirt onto it, but it didn’t need any. It was tasty and juicy, and dripped onto my shirt twice. For me, laundry day is every second month, so the blops will add to that shirt’s already interesting geography.

The waitress came by to ask if everything was OK, or at least I’m guessing that’s what she asked. It had the patter of “Is everything OK?” but I couldn’t decipher the words, so I smiled and said yup.

Which might’ve been a lie. I couldn’t swear to it, but I thought the menu said that the Classic Cheeseburger comes with fries, and for $12.99 that seems a safe assumption. There were no fries.

But I could’ve been wrong, and I’m an easygoing customer in a restaurant, not an “Excuse me, ma’am,” kind of guy. No fries? OK, no fries. Life goes on.

Soon I’d finished the burger and salad, but I was still hungry, so when the waitress came by again, I said, “What do you folks have for dessert?”

She looked flustered and said, “Sorry, sorry,” and vanished, but she sent a youngish man to take her place. An assistant manager, would be my guess, and he spoke better English than I do.

“Did you need something else, sir?”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind a piece of pie or whatever y’all have for dessert.”

“We don’t have pie,” he said, “but for dessert I recommend the churros.”

“Churros would be great,” I said.

And great they were. Let me tell you, the salad and burger had been fine, but the churros at El Super Locco are on a higher level of existence. On the full-size plate, six steaming hot churros were arrayed like an asterisk. In the middle of the asterisk, two scoops of ice cream. Above the ice cream, a small mountain of whipped cream. And drizzled generously over all of this, chocolate sauce that was definitely better than Hershey.

Even looking at dessert, I gained two pounds, and eating it, I gained three more.

In my experience, churros are just long strips of sweet dough, fried and then rolled in sugar and cinnamon. These were very, very fresh, sizzling hot to the touch, with unexpected caramel oozing from each churro. It was among the finest desserts of my life, and being a fat guy I’ve had tens of thousands of desserts, so I’m speaking with some serious expertise.

The bill wasn’t outrageous, but it wasn’t cheap.

At home, I looked up the menu online, and the Classic Cheeseburger is supposed to come with fries. There’s even a picture of the fries I didn’t get. Along with Gaza and the sucky sequels to Star Wars, it’s one of the world’s worst outrages.

But I ain’t seriously complaining. Everybody makes occasional mistakes. Maybe when I ordered, and the waitress who barely spoke English asked a question I didn’t understand, my “No thanks, I’m fine” got translated as “hold the fries.”

All in all, it was a good light lunch with a fantabulous dessert. My strategy for next time is, I’ll eat somewhere else, then come to El Super Pollo for the churros.

El Super Pollo
13806 1St Ave S, Burien WA
Food & drink: ordinary
Dessert: extraordinary
Price: ordinary
Service: ordinary
Transit: Route #131
Verdict: YES.

10/23/2024

Cheap Seattle

Affordable eats

itsdougholland.com
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