What I really wanted was the roasted chicken.
They do a famously succulent marinated rotisserie chicken here. I usually order a quarter of it, with a small salad, fries and a serving or two of "Nectar de Maracuyá", otherwise known as Passion Fruit Juice.
To me this juice alone is reason to stop here but today I had been working in the area since 8:15am and my 11:30 had been canceled. I was starving but opted to take advantage of my all of a sudden free window of opportunity and went for a ten dollar walk-in manicure instead at a little Vietnamese-owned nail place off of Ambaum in Burien.
Since I had skipped breakfast altogether--and I was just about to get to the area where Ambaum becomes 16th Street and Burien becomes White Center-- I stopped for a bite at El Chalán (where the old Ezell’s Famous Chicken used to be), a family owned restaurant that serves traditional dishes from Perú.
I was thinking rotisserie.
However, I arrived at the restaurant a bit too early and the birds were not ready. Since I was not in the mood for the lunch special, a "Seco Norteño" or their "Adobo de Puerco" I opted for an item not on the lunch menu, a brand new one, the "Burrito Peruano", the Peruvian version of course.
Described to me by the owner as a milder burrito ("milder and more elegant than its Mexican counterpart") made with Peruvian rice, beans and chicken breast cooked to order, with a side salad. Good enough. But I also asked for a bit of hot sauce as I remembered how Peruvian food, although tasty is not really terribly spicy nor packs as much heat as I like.
When the Burrito came I poured over it the entire contents of the small dish of the chunky and orange colored homemade hot sauce that was placed on the table.
The burrito looked lovely. Simple, generously sized, with plenty of rice, beans and delectable chicken morsels. But I had sealed my fate with one pour. The innocently looking sauce was so hot that while I took bite after bite of my lunch (I told you I was starving, didn't I?) my eyes began to well up, my lips and mouth to burn and that's when I started to really consider the thought of asking for a glass of milk or else run like the wind down Ambaum Road until everything cooled off again.
But I did not do either of those things. Instead, I finished my lunch, stoically dried my tears and blew my nose a couple times with a spare paper napkin (thank goodness the restaurant was basically empty).
I then walked up to to the owner of the restaurant, Don Raúl, a very polite and soft-spoken gentleman, handed him my card, signed the receipt, got in the car and drove away.
My mouth was burning by the time I reached Delridge Way and it was still smoking when I got on the West Seattle bridge to go back to the city.
The moral of the story? Don't assume that Peruvians are strangers to intense heat, to peppery salsas. Test the sauce before you pour it all over your lunch or better yet, wait for the rotisserie chicken to be ready. :-D
El Chalán
11060 16th Ave. S.W.,
Burien, WA
206- 444-4747
11 a.m.–9 p.m.
