El Chupacabra

Recently, I went to a restaurant in Seattle called El Chupacabra. Apparently, that means "goat sucker". Aaron and I were explaining that to a friend and she thought we were saying "goat fucker"...well, now, that brings a completely different image to my mind and let me just say that it's not very appetizing.

The menus at the restaurant show a picture of a chupacabra. It is a mythical creature that looks like a big lizard that supposedly attacks goats and sucks out their blood. I did a little research online about El Chupacabra and it confirmed the information on the menu.

The space where El Chupacabra is located used to be inhabited by the Stalk Exchange, which was an all organic restaurant. We drove by it all the time, but I never was particularly jazzed to go there.

The building was originally a house and still looks like a house. You go up the front steps to go inside the front door to the restaurant. There is a bar to your right and the rest of the seating is for the restaurant area. It is painted bright red (just like our living room!) and there are lots of Day of the Dead decorations on the walls and on small built-in shelves.

You can smoke in the bar and outside, but the rest of the restaurant is non-smoking. We sat inside at the bar for a while, then moved to a table, and finally scored an outside table. (It was so hot on Friday that it was actually refreshing to sit outside in the evening. A rarity in the PNW.)

The drinks are medium priced. They have house margaritas for $5 and the Cadillac margaritas are a bit more. Beer is in the $4 range and mixed drinks are around $5 and up. I had a house margarita and a few beers. The margaritas taste a little salty. (I know, there is salt on the rim, Einstein, but I mean the actual beverage was salty.) My friend Rey said that is because they used Cuervo tequila, which, in his opinion, is crappy. I'm not sure about that, because I'm not a big tequila drinker (I'm a vodka girl, in case you're curious). So I just switchd to Mac and Jack's, which always hits the spot.

I noticed that they have a pool table in the back area, but we didn't partake. We did, however, fill up the jukebox with tunes. They have a decent selection of indie, buttrock, and classic country. We put on a mix of Johnny Cash, the Ramones, Motley Crue, Loretta Lynn, the Pixies, AC/DC, and a ton of other stuff. I think we put in about $5, so we monopolized the music picks the whole time we were there. As it should be...

The food is really affordable. The nachos are about $6 and have the requisite melted cheese, some beans, olives, sour cream and pico de gallo for dipping. Aaron had a bean burrito, which was $4.25 for a small, but it was definitely plenty. We all shared an order of jalapeno poppers, which I normally don't like, but these were flavorful without being too spicy. They also have two kinds of salsa on the table in bottles that look like old school ketchup and mustard containers. There is a green salsa that I liked and a red salsa that I didn't like. The green one was medium hot and had lots of garlic in it. The red one was also medium hot, but had more of a smoky taste, kind of like chipotle. Apparently, the food is San Francisco Mission style. I've never been to San Francisco, but I thought it was pretty good.

So, if you get a chance, check out El Chupacabra. They are on Greenwood, across the street from the Red Mill. But if it gets hot again, I would recommend getting there early so you can get outdoor seating. And don't bring your goat.