Would You Buy a Burger From This Bird?

It’s 90 degrees in the shade and humid as an Atlanta lemonade afternoon, but the man in the yellow rooster suit carries on, waggling his floppy claws, blowing kisses to pretty girls, dancing . . . well . . . the Funky Chicken, as Lincoln Boulevard traffic surges past toward the Marina. Though he’s only been around a few months, the chicken is already a Santa Monica landmark, like Lawrence Welk’s office building and the Frank Gehry house. He may be the longest-running bit of performance art in town.

People honk at the chicken; he spins and hops and waves in response. When people smile at the chicken, he seems to smile right back, tilting his head at a quizzical angle and gazing a friendly chicken gaze. (There’s not much range of expression in a plastic chicken head.) The chicken is remarkably lively, considering the heat and the oppressive weight of his suit, and the certain knowledge that he can be replaced by a mechanical clown.

Every so often a car will pull over to the curb, and a college student with a Hasselblad jumps out to take some snapshots of gritty Los Angeles street life, which the chicken will pose for until he gets bored. His patron owns the adjacent restaurant, and the bird knows on which side his fillets are buttered.

California Chicken Burger might be expensive for a fast-food place--burger, fries and drink cost as much as they would at a moderately upscale coffeeshop--but you figure you’re paying a hidden cover charge for the chicken, just as you’d expect to for a flamenco show or a gypsy violin. From the air-conditioned comfort of the place, you can watch the gyrations of the chicken outside without inhaling fumes from the Number 12 bus, though you might have to peer around the surfing-chicken mural somebody’s painted on the front window. The restaurant’s aqua vinyl booths are cushy enough to lounge on for hours, as you nurse a moo-less amaretto shake, and the restaurant’s menu conceit is odd enough to keep you there as you ponder it.

“Everybody likes junk food,” the owner says whether you’ve asked him or not, “and what we try to do is junk food that’s just a little better for you. Our burger is made from 100% organic, hormone-free chicken breast and thigh ground into a patty and broiled, on a fresh whole-wheat bun with Bermuda onion, lettuce, tomato, an eggless non-cholesterol mayonnaise . . . “

“All chicken sold in California is hormone-free,” I said. “It’s the law. What do you use, Zacky?”

“Yeah, Zacky,” he said, “We grind it here, except for the chicken dog, which we buy. The chicken chili is our own. We make our fries in canola oil, no cholesterol. And the moo-less, non-dairy shakes . . . “

He thrust out a brochure, which I ducked back to avoid.

” . . . no cholesterol.”

A tableful of California Chicken Burger stuff is kind of an exploration of the chameleon possibilities of chicken, bird pretending to be everything but itself and dessert. A chicken patty itself is weird and slightly scorched-tasting on its own but fine when sandwiched with condiments in a strong, whole-wheat bun. It gives the illusion of greasiness without being greasy itself, which I suppose is the point. If you order a Cajun chicken burger, you get the same thing sprinkled with a pinch of Paul Prudhomme-style dried herbs; if you order a Mexichicken burger, you get something like a Cajun chicken burger with an Ortega chile on it. The chicken dog is anydog U.S.A.

Though the actual chicken is a little dry, chicken chile is pretty good--spicy, orange glop with a cumin wallop, closer to the macho style you find at chili championships than to the polite stuff usually served in restaurants. You can get it in a bowl, in a burrito, as a chicken sloppy Joe, or with black beans and lettuce on a mammoth tostada, the fried dogbowl-shaped kind that feeds three.

But chicken isn’t a steer any more than the man flagging down cars outside is really a chicken. What’s unavailable here is anything that actually tastes like a bird.

California Chicken Burger, 2224 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica, (213) 450-3878. Open Mon.-Sat., 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sun., 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Cash only. No alcohol. Takeout and delivery. Dinner for two, food only, $10-$14.