Cheap Eats - Novel snacks
Unique takes on tamales and pupusas make El Salvador II worth a try
Meals can be a lot like books, I’ve found. There are masterly novels and fine dinners that change something inside your heart and haunt you. Then there are paperbacks and quickie snacks that fill your time or belly with a minimum of effort for a maximum of instant gratification. Lunch and dinner at El Salvador II fall into the latter category. While the menu features steak, chicken and seafood plates with beans, rice and tortillas similar to others you’ll find in Buford Highway’s Latin eateries, items from the house specialties section (including some particularly scintillating tamales) offer better value and variety.
A special chapter on tamales: On our first visit, we snarfed down the Salvadoran tamales, distinguished from their Mexican counterparts by a lightened texture and the inclusion of potato chunks. The shredded dark-meat chicken tamale ($2) had the fluffiness and mouth-melting texture of grits soufflé and was wrapped in a green corn husk. Chipotle-scented pork is the zesty highlight of the pork tamale ($2), which comes wrapped in a banana leaf. Chicken, steak and carnitas tacos (three for $5.75) were satisfying, if unexceptional. The carnitas was a bit too porky for my taste, though the chicken and steak were a bit bland. A spoonful of curtido, pickled cabbage meant for pupusas, livened things up.
A romance called Loroco: There’s little to dislike about pupusas, the Salvadoran flatbreads made of corn dough, stuffed with white cheese or meat, or both, and griddled. The pupusa filled with pork and cheese ($2) beckoned with shredded braised pork and melted white cheese that seeped out with each bite. Curtido adds zing and veggie crunch to the pupusas’ heavy nature. Cheese and loroco, an aromatic flower grown only in El Salvador and parts of Guatemala, fill another pupusa. This combination trumps the pork and cheese with a piquant, nutty flavor from the loroco that contributes contrasting flavor and texture to the mild cheese and corn dough. The Salvadoran enchilada ($3.99) consists of a corn tortilla deep-fried into crispy layers that shatter with each bite, topped with pureed pinto beans, shredded chicken and a snowy dusting of white cheese. Cap off your meal with the eggy, house-made flan ($3), which is as syrupy-sweet as the best happy endings.