Rating: Across the parking lot from the east 7th HEB, tucked away behind the gaudy Pinky’s wireless store, stands a little restaurant named El Zunzal. Today at lunch I braved the weather in what will heretofor be remembered as the great deluge of October 2K6 in order to find out what the Zunzal was all about. I’m going to skip ahead a little bit and impart some knowledge I picked up off google after my restaurant visit. Playa Zunzal is apparently a tiny Pacific coast beach in El Salvador (south of San Salvador) which is some kind of gringo surfer heaven. Accordingly, El Zunzal has a healthy smattering of authentic Salvadorian cuisine, in addition to the standard Austin Mex faire that is found at virtually every place in town.

To be honest, I was pretty worried when I walked in the place. The front counter area was in a general state of disarray, the place kind of smelled strongly of cleanser, and there were about 3 customers seated at 12:30 PM. There exists a primal human instinct called fight or flight, and it applies to almost every human interaction imaginable including the taco hunt. The whole of my taco instinct was screaming run when I walked in this place. I’d been here too many times before, trapped in the belly of the beast with medicore tacos. Why would I subject myself to the bland taco doldrums, risking further hunger, when my bastion of taco knowledge kept telling me that taco bliss was no more than a few blocks in any direction!!??? Motherf*cking TACO TOWN b*tiches. That’s f*cking why. Cause you f*ckers need my ass.

And are you glad I put my ass on the line today. Becuase I have to say that my eating experience at El Zunzal turned out to be nothing short of outstanding. When my chips were finally delivered, I found the salsa to be fresh and surprisingly good (bonus: it was really cold, which I love). I decided to follow my waiter’s advice and get something I was wholly unfamiliar with when ordering lunch, the pupusa de queso y chicarron. Additionally I ordered the tamales pollo, and as a litmus test the taco al pastor. The Pastor Taco was above average, yet utterly forgettable in an east side sea of pastor goodness. In contrast, I felt that both the pupusa and the tamale were perfection. A pupusa is basically a gordita, that instead of being grilled, sliced, and then stuffed—- is first stuffed with a combination of cheese and something (chicken, chicarron, loroco(which is some kind of salvadorian flower petal)) before being grilled. During grilling, hot cheese will usually bust out at some seam to releive the pressure, making it look kind of like a jelly donut (which is a major imagery bonus). Oddly, pupusas are served with a vinegar/cabbage slaw which in today’s case was bright red. My waiter told me to put that slaw on my pup, and what a glorious taste combination this was. It would be impossible to convey how well the two tastes combined–although one might compare it to peanut butter meeting jelly or fried chicken meeting syrupy waffles.

The tamale was possibly the best I have ever tasted. Straight up. It was not a shrimpy little mexican tamale, however. It was a big, gooey, overly moist, amazingly hot and flavorful central american tamale. It was closer to the size of a burrito than it was a mexican tamale. As amazing as it was, I was unable to finish it– as I had apparently saved my best item for last. The inner workings of the tamale were wrapped in a plantain husk, which was then wrapped in foil— and the whole thing was slice opened bread-box style so I could not lose any of the juices. It was bliss. I also picked up a semita de pina ( giant pineapple sweetbread cake 3$) on the way out. It was also incredible.
When I return to El Zunzal, I will probably get one pupusa and one tamale– they were both that big and that amazing— and at 2$ each now qualify as one of the best deals on the east side. However, the prices on the rest of the menu were kind of high, averaging 10 dollars for any plate—with options in Salvadorian, Seafood, and Mexican combo plates. Apparently, the owners own a group of taco trucks that patrol town as “Tacos del Rey” but they were all at the store today because of the heavy rains. I hope those are doing well, because the very mediocre state of the restaurant could turn off many customers. East Seventh is full of great, reasonably priced Mexican food, but you can bet I’ll be back to this gem—even if it’s only to get my food para llevar.

El Zunzal

512-474-7449
642 Calles
Austin, TX 78702

Ratings:

Salsa: 6

Atmosphere: 4 (bonus for the auththentic tejano jukebox and the widescreen mexican soap operas)
Service: 7 (was told what to oder, properly, made copy of menu when they didn’t have one for me)
Food quality: 9 (seriously mindblowing)

Price: 6 (both impressive and not)

Rating: (32/50)