Let’s taco about it!
Blinking neon lights announced a swanky new Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood. With Super Bueno, seasoned (no pun there!) restaurateur Ethan Stowell added another feather to his cap. It is located on Stone Way, which has many American joints/bars which serve the odd tacos or poke bowl, but no proper restaurants with ethnic cuisines. My husband and I were pretty excited about this new place!
We started off with the blackened chicken and carne asada tacos. Heavy on the meat, with purple cabbage adding both color and crunch – the tacos had good flavor. The corn tortillas which come three per order, were a bit on the smaller side. In Mexican food, it is the little trimmings and house sauces that make all the difference. At Super Bueno, they did come with bottled sauces, but no homemade sauce. The real fingerlickin’ stuff is usually found inside the kitchen in most Mexican restaurants. We requested for some of their homemade hot sauce, but were disappointed to find out that they don’t make any.
Their salsas, however were fresh and tangy. If you go with a group of friends, you must try the nachos – which come nicely loaded with all the works; crispy, meaty and cheesy all at once. It is finished off with a huge dollop of thick and creamy guacamole. We also tried the chilled watermelon with comes sizzling with pop rocks, adding a wee bit of theatrics to the experience.
Super Bueno gets its margaritas spot on. The bueno margarita is refreshing and potent, with a rather heavy dose of tequila. The watermelon and jalapeno spiked ones are worth trying too! A bloody-mary girl myself, I loved that their cocktails were not too sweet.
Finally, it was time for dessert. The churros were fluffy on the inside, golden-crisp on the outside and dusted with cinnamon-sugar. Instead of the traditional chocolate dipping sauce, we were served a tamarind-caramel sauce. It went undeniably well with the churros, and was a good surprise for the palate.
Killing two birds with one stone, Super Bueno has a cafe and a restaurant both under one sprawling roof. The place is bright and modern, all high-ceilings, wooden tabletops and white-washed walls. It is kid-friendly with a play area, that you can overlook while gorging yourself silly on guac and chips. The service is really friendly, and the staff does really care.
While the food is good with generous portions, it is not authentic Mexican grub. There is a Fremont touch to the food, a hipster+millennial spin on most of the classics. There are no traditional Mexican touches in the decor or ambience either. If you are a Mexican food purist, you’d be disappointed. It is though, a nice, upbeat place to hangout after work. And if you want to hog on the ‘mom-tacos’ (Yes, it is a thing!), drink boozy frozen margaritas and take a break, while your kids play- you’re in the right place.
Is this more colonization? Cultural appropriation? Where’s my outrage?
I’m not outraged but neither am I interested in yet another Ethan Stowell venture. Big corporate restaurant chain serves expensive eats. Oh please.
As far as expensive eats go, it seems that the prices are reflective of the soaring rents and rise in wages in the neighborhood or are you saying that just because it’s Mexican food, it can’t be expensive. This is an interesting read https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/04/09/472568085/why-hunting-down-authentic-ethnic-food-is-a-loaded-proposition
I don’t mind paying premium prices for Mexican or any other type of cuisine. My comment does not remotely suggest that I do. My specific complaint, a general one, is about the proliferation of corporate, formulaic restaurants that are expensive and boring at best.
Would it make you feel any better that a lot of the workers in the kitchen based on nationwide statistics may be from Mexico? Cultural appropriation? I don’t know. America is the land of immigrants and cultural adaptation. Is it cultural appropriation if someone decides to open an Italian Restaurant, not being Italian? or a Thai restaurant, not being Thai. The measure of a restaurant, at least in the U.S., should be if the food is good, not who is manning the kitchen. https://www.stlmag.com/dining/The-Invisible-Minority-Mexican-Kitchen-Workers-Are-Ubiquitous-But-Unheralded/ The only thing I may have an issue with is often an ethnic cuisine is often overlooked until it’s given validation by a white chef or food writer but on the other hand there are now more culturally aware and curious people who are often discovering these cuisines on their own.
Not that long ago, most non-whte foods were still considered to be of low quality,despite the fact that many of them actually had longer tradition and richer food culture. In some ways, it has to be white chefs or white writers that help facilitate the change with very toned-down versions of the food. You don’t go straight to Free Jazz as a new Jazz listener.
Sure, it’s the food, not the origin of the “chef” (weird title in this context.) The way this review reads, though, it sounds like the cultural adaptation may have gone a little too far, if you’re into Mexican food. Which might be OK – I like Pecado Bueno pretty well, and that isn’t any mecca of authenticity, but it’s fast and reasonably priced, they have decent beer and the margaritas don’t have ice slush in them.
People have been discovering Mexican food on their own for generations, we didn’t need Ethan Stowell to let us in on that. “Chile Pepper” on N 45th might be worth a try if you’re feeling that way, we went there a few months ago and it was fine.
I was merely responding to the original post of colonization, cultural appropriation and outrage. I have been to Pecado Bueno and Chili Pepper and neither are very good in my personal opinion. I have been to Super Bueno and there were some hits and misses. The tacos were tasty (except for the fish taco which was bland and needed lime and hot sauce to liven up), the jicama salad was spot on flavor wise, tangy and refreshing, the chips and guacamole were very good, the margarita was also very good. The only miss was the Mexican rice, bland and mushy. As far as pricing goes, as I posted earlier, I think it’s indicative of the rents and wages in our neighborhood. Let’s face it, dining out in Seattle has become expensive. I sense an animosity towards Ethan Stowell restaurants for some reason. I have no affiliation with them except having dined at several of them and having very good meals at them. I don’t think he is trying to introduce authentic Mexican food to the uninitiated. There is more to Mexican food than chips, tacos and churros. I am not sure what a hipster millennial spin on food is but at best food at a restaurant should be indicative of it’s locality. So a restaurateur wants to open a Mexican restaurant, why the animosity? I’m glad that there are dining options opening along Stone Way.
I don’t know if it amounts to animosity, but I’m another one not super excited about more chains.
This new restaurant isn’t about introducing Mexican food. It’s a hipster place. They can start serving Manolin or Joule food tomorrow and still get the same customers and nobody would feel weird.
Rancho Bravo is cheaper and faster and probably more authentic than both Pecado Bueno and Chile Pepper, but even the price there has been steadily going up. If you want relatively cheap good food you’ll have to drive to Shoreline these days, with even the U-district and International-district both getting expensive. It’s the combination of real estate price and minimum wage that’s driving price up.
It’s a great new dining option. Single twenty somethings and older parents with kids of all ages can all be comfortable with good food. I liked it. It’s a pity Stone is getting all these places and we don’t get anything like this up on north / northwest 45th.