“Ten bucks,” my buddy said. “That’s it. Oh wait, here are some coins in the console. Hmm. Still not good.”
We were driving around downtown Santa Rosa, feeling very hungry, and mighty poor. But dollar double cheeseburgers be dammed, we weren’t going to give in to Burger King.
I scrounged in the glove box, pulling out the change purse I stashed away for parking meters. It clinked nicely, but not enough for a nice meal.
“Pupusas,” I said suddenly, pulling down a side street across from the Sonoma County Fair Grounds. I skidded my car to a stop in front of the small, non-descript storefront of Pupuseria Salvadorena. “Score.”
A pupusa is a thick, hand-made corn flatbread stuffed with savories. They’re hearty mouthfuls, and at about $2 each, we would eat like kings, with enough cash left for a tasty beverage or even dessert.
We started with the deluxe model, mounded with juicy pork, cheese and beans ($2.50). Next up was a gooey beauty bursting with cheese, fresh squash and spinach ($2). Then it was on to a fat tortilla dressed in cheese and El Salvador’s prized loroco flower ($2.25), a plant which, besides being pungently delicious, is a natural aphrodisiac, good to know.
We tossed in a pillowy-crusty empanada tucked with chewy plantain and silky milk custard ($1.75), and a tamale studded with chicken and bits of peanut ($2). To wash it all down: a complex, compelling horchata drink blending milk, sugar, morro seed, rice, sesame, cinnamon, peanuts, cocoa and vanilla ($1.75).
Did we really need dessert by then? No, but we did it anyway, digging into atol de elote, a thick, sweet pudding of ground corn, cinnamon and milk ($2.50).
Happy Meal, my eye. This value feast had us grinning from ear to ear.
At other, slightly richer times for our wallets, the brightly painted Pupuseria Salvadorena hits the spot for entrée plates, too, such as tender carne asada ($10), or fried tilapia draped over rice ($11). There’s a grilled shrimp platter with rice, beans, salad and tortillas for a princely $12, but also a hearty stewed beef with rice and salad for just $7.50.
Salpicon ($7) is perhaps the best dish, however, and a remarkable bargain, as a mountain of diced beef that’s fragrant with onion and flecks of mint, scooped in a warm tortilla with rice and beans and a bit of crunchy lettuce.
Depending on when your hunger hits, you can go for breakfast – as simple as fried plantain with beans and sour cream ($5), or as fancy as scrambled eggs gussied with chorizo, beans and sour cream spooned up with tortilla ($6). And on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, soup fans converge for menudo ($7.50) or the seven seas seafood combo ($12).
Score!
Details: 1403 Maple Ave., Santa Rosa, 707-544-3141.
Sounds like a real find! Can’t wait to try it!