El Gallito!

El Gallito

693 Main Street
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-3740
(845) 471-4834

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!

After last week's excursion to the pleasantly gringo-ized Cafe Maya on Main Street, Wappingers Falls, with their pleasant margaritas, it was nice to come home to some Poughkeepsie Main Street Mexican.

No frills, no loud music, no English (OK, the owner spoke real good)... No beer. No, sniff, margaritas. But yet again, we had some predictably wonderful Mexican food.

We began with the now standard Mexican (cane sugar) Coke, 2 Jarritos Tamarindos, and Zoe was brave to try the, and I am not making this up, Boingo Guava soda, also made with pure cane sugar. Truth be told, we reckoned it was just sub-saturated with real sugar, which they must've figured was a good substitute for guava.

The waitress, who spoke not a word of English (to us, at any rate), dropped off some fantastically fresh salsas (red and green), which had us waiting in anticipation for the chips that never came. When I asked in my broken Spanish for chips, she just smiled and shook her head. She had multiple blenders stuffed to the brim with chiles in the back, whirring away.

The offerings at El Gallito were slightly different than the other Mexican restaurants in Poughkeepsie, perhaps reflecting the restauranteur's Puebla origins (Puebla is a state in Mexico north of Oaxaca and a little east of Mexico City). The menu is quite simple, written only in Spanish. Zoe opted for the good old standard- Tacos de pollo. These tacos were a little rough, served with a healthy portion of fresh cilantro, a smattering of onions and only a small wedge of lime to dampen the rabbit food. Not exactly what even an intrepid 10 year old had in mind.

Nina and our friend Dan, who accompanied us on this week's outing, opted for the chicken burrito. Mostly chicken, rice and beans with some of that really nice green salsa. I learned of this not from young Dan, who plowed through his burro with the gusto of a 20-something who has been working the Appalachian Trail all summer, but from Nina who was horrified to find, *gasp!*, salsa on her burrito and wouldn't eat it! Punk.

Luckily, the waitress humored me when I asked for the, "Especial de la casa" in my just-slightly-less-than-useless Spanish. Pollo rostisseria! She brought out the most wonderful looking half bird I'd seen in a long time. Roasted to perfection, Nina complained that it was hard to eat because the meat just fell off the bones. I found the chicken a bit bland, but when wrapped up in a fresh, warm corn tortilla, a smattering of rice and black beans and some of that salsa... Yeah, that's right!

I shared my chicken with Nina, and she her burrito with me. Zoe snaked my Coke, and I kindly refused her Boingo (I know, that just sounds wrong...). And Dan happily munched away during this typical occurrence of McAdoo standard bliss.