Dude, Let’s Go Bowling

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Val

World’s Largest Bowling Pin

Tampa, Florida

Alie and I are shown actual size

Alie and I are shown actual size

The prime target in any bowling alley lane is the 1 (or head) pin. A straight smack to the head pin generally sends the remaining pins screaming to the back of the lane in a satisfying cataclysm of battered wood. That head pin stands at attention, smirking, laughing and taunting you to take your best shot, an evil little bottle-shaped chunk of maple that makes you not only want to knock it down, but to kill it outright. Now picture that pin 30 feet tall, poised to knock you down. That’s what you’ll come face-to-face with when you ascend the escalator at Channelside Bay Plaza, an open-air plaza mall just steps between the TECO Line Streetcar and the cruise ship terminal at Tampa Harbor. The pin itself is taller than the bowling alley it appears to have escaped from (Splitsville Lanes), and although it doesn’t seem formidable looking down into the courtyard at it, the pin dwarfs even the tallest bowler. As impressive as this superlative sporting good sculpture is, you can’t help looking around for a Indiana Jones-style bowling ball to come rolling down the escalator. The pin has stood outside the front entrance to Splitsville since their opening in Tampa in 2004, and it has become a photo opportunity, a tourist attraction and a holy grail for ‘world’s largest” object hunters.

The dining and drinking area with its bowling pin columns

The dining and drinking area with its bowling pin columns

When you visit the world’s largest ball of twine in Cawker City, Kansas, you have the opportunity to interact with the behemoth by winding twine around it; at Splitsville Lanes, once you’ve lingered in front of the pin for awhile, there’s only one obvious thing left to do – go bowling. The inside is clean as a whistle with a throwback, retro 1950s look. As you walk in, a look to the left reveals a very fully stocked bar and restaurant with tables and booths accented with ridiculously high-backed leather benches. The area to the right of the drinking and dining area features ceiling-high bowling pin columns that look like offspring of Big Daddy standing watch out front. At the very back, custom bowling balls sit in cubby holes behind Plexiglas next to a giant multi-colored high-heel pump sculpture that seems out of place in a bowling alley (perhaps a bowling shoe would have made a better subject); the lanes themselves are cordoned off into three sections of four lanes each. As retro as the place is, you won’t find yourself placing an “X” on a newsprint grid with little yellow pencils – the scorekeeping is modernized so that to can view your score automatically on the monitor at your lane or watch in horror as it is displayed on the large monitor above. After each ball, the monitor sizes up what you have left to hit and gives you degrees of difficulty and tips (although I think it gave up on me very early on). The lane area features a tall, plush curved bench with a round table in the middle – a waitperson will bring menus and deliver food and drink right to where you’re sitting; you can imagine how helpful it is to have food grease all over your hands while you’re hurling a 16-pound spherical resin projectile through the air.

Though I walk to the Lane of Darkness I will fear no evil

Though I walk to the Lane of Darkness I will fear no evil

No detail is overlooked – daughter Alie arrived sans socks, but we were able to conveniently purchase a pair of white cotton peds at the shoe rental counter. As neither of us are frequent bowlers, we played with the house’s balls, although it took us half a string to find the right weight and fit. If you haven’t suffered enough humiliation and choose to bowl another game, you simply let them know at the front desk (otherwise the system conveniently shuts itself down). You can end up having so much fun bowling, drinking and dining that you’ll forget that the reason you showed up in the first place was to see the kingpin outside. Whether you’re a Jeffrey Lebowski, Split Carson, Roy Munson, or a “50” bowler like me, it’s damned near impossible to hit Splitsville Lanes and not have a good time – just leave the Pomeranian at home.

Splitsville Lanes
Channelside Bay Plaza
615 Channelside Drive
Tampa, Florida 33602
GPS Coordinates: 27°56’34.95″N  82°26’48.69″W

GALLERY: See images from Val and Alie’s visit to Splitsville in Tampa, Florida

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Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Val

Boiled peanuts

Southeastern U.S.

An old sign near the Georgia-Florida border

An old sign near the Georgia-Florida border

Can you imagine attending a Major League baseball game or going to the circus where you weren’t sitting knee-deep in a mound of peanut shells after your third or fourth bag? How about sitting in a roadhouse diner or bar and working your way through the basket of roasted peanuts on the table or bar? Well, in the Southeastern U.S. you’d have to rethink your bar snack strategy since Mr. Peanut is more likely to be presented fresh out of the hot tub. Southerners have been boiling the legume for about as long as they’ve been eating it; in fact, it is said to have kept the Confederate army going during lean times since the dry peanuts travel well and can be boiled whenever needed. The process of boiling them is mind-numbingly simple, but before you go opening a jar of Planter’s Dry Roasted and dump them willy-nilly into a sauce pan full of roiling salted water, consider that only green (freshly picked) peanuts will work. The peanuts are rinsed and soaked (in-shell), then boiled in salted water for up to 4 hours – the finished product is a pea that has the consistency of an undercooked kidney bean or baked potato. In addition to salt, some people add Cajun or other spices to the soup to give an additional kick and flavor to the peanuts. Ironically the peanut taste itself is muted (it’s possible that much of the flavor gets boiled out), but depending on how long they’ve been sitting prior to serving they can be filled with hot, salty broth. Since the shell can have the consistency of anywhere between damp straw and wet cardboard getting to the nut can be a little tricky; although some people recommend tearing the shell open with your teeth, there is a good chance of rendering the pea into mush that won’t come out of the shell. The best way appears to be finding the natural seam of the shell and tearing gently apart – of course you’re still stuck with the task of freeing the soft meat from the shell.

The clerk at Florida Citrus Center scoops a cup of boiled peanuts

The clerk at Florida Citrus Center scoops a cup of boiled peanuts

Finding boiled peanuts in the South is easy – they generally find you. There are a profusion of roadside stands and shacks peppering both sides of the I-95 corridor that runs through boiled peanut country (North Carolina through Florida), with additional stands throughout Alabama and Mississippi. It is best to eat them freshly boiled since they don’t keep well afterwards – I recommend finding a place where you can sit outdoors and plow through your peanuts without having to worry about properly disposing of your biodegradable shells. I would advise caution, however, as that sweet little patch of grass under a spreading magnolia may also be a popular spot with the invasive red imported fire ant. These tiny bad boys will happily eat your peanut shells and you for desert. Like hot dogs or any other street treat, there’s something about eating them outdoors that increases your enjoyment of the boiled peanuts. Throughout Florida there are a series of souvenir stands going by the name Florida Citrus Center offering citrus fruit and a free cup of orange juice, in addition to the aforementioned boiled peanuts. Billboards for one of the stands advertises a 13-foot alligator on the premises that turns out to be a moth-eaten stuffed relic spilling out stuffing in a cage in front of the stand. Wally Gator’s preserved cousin inside the stand is in much better shape and presides over a kingdom of mini alligator heads available for sale.

A bowl of boiled peanuts at Gaspar's Grotto in Ybor City, FL

A bowl of boiled peanuts at Gaspar's Grotto in Ybor City, FL

If cruising the highways to satisfy your goober fix isn’t your cup of tea, most restaurants in the Southern states offer them as a pre-meal snack free of charge. From Gaspar’s Grotto in Ybor City, Florida to Hominy Grill in Charleston, South Carolina, boiled peanuts grace the tables of a wide variety of restaurants. The dish is so popular that they were recently officially declared the State Snack of South Carolina (you can keep your popcorn, Illinois). In times past these would have automatically appeared on the table but in the era of peanut allergies, your wait staff now politely asks before bringing them out. What are you waiting for – gas up the station wagon, pick up Jimmy Carter and the ghost of George Washington Carver and motor down Interstate 95 for the snack that makes Andre the Giant ask the all-important question, “Anyone want a peanut?”

Florida Citrus Center #50
1789 SW Highway 484
Ocala, Florida 34473-3922
GPS Coordinates: 29°1’32.98″N 82°9’18.41″W

GALLERY: See images of boiled peanuts from Val’s Southeast road trip

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Love Potion Number 9

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Val

Chinese aphrodisiac dinner

Hop Woo, Chinatown, Los Angeles

Bull penis and other unidentified objects

Bull penis and other unidentified objects

I suppose before we get started I’ll preface this article with a warning to children, librarians and members of the clergy – I will be using the word “penis”. Repeatedly. Before you get the impression that you’ve stumbled upon a “Val Does Dallas” website, said penis was the business end of a male ox. Avid followers of this blog know that this isn’t my first foray into penile cuisine – my first experience experimenting with the pork sword (technically, the beef sword) was in phở at Pho Nguyen Hue in Westminster, California. Always the adventurer, I also had a mouthful of Eddie Lin’s bacon-wrapped johnson (not HIS personally) at a BizarreBQ last year. While trying to find an interesting dish to invite some bloggers and friends to try, the aforementioned Mr. Lin informed me that Chef Lupe Liang at the trippy Hop Woo in Chinatown whipped up a mean pot of bull penis soup, and so the game was afoot (and a penis). Initially the meal was going to be a one man play, with the penis soup giving the Tony award-winning performance of a lifetime, but it turns out that Chef Liang had a few tricks up his sleeve. What Chef Liang had planned was essentially an aphrodisiac dinner, with some food designed for other health benefits as well, the perfect feast for our dinner guests: Vivianne Lapointe of LIVE F>A>S>T Magazine, Arianna Armstrong of GrapeSmart, Food Truck Times and other food, wine and social sites, and The Minty, the eponymous host of a site covering food, drink and dating.

A live sea urchin pays homage to its dead family

A live sea urchin pays homage to its dead family

The first course (the penis soup) was brought out in individual covered soup tureens, leaving our imaginations to run wild while Chef Liang described the dish and its benefits in Chinese; I didn’t need a translator to get the general idea of what the soup was reputed to do as I caught his inflections and hand gestures. I momentarily envisioned opening the lid and having a bovine jack-in-the-box moment, but as in other preparations, the moo tool was finely sliced. I had to put on my journalistic game face overhearing Eddie ask Chef Liang how well he cleans his penis, while trying to size up the soup. The broth was a brown-black color and had a strong aroma of spices and herbs. One dip of the spoon brought up a collection of objects including things that looked like plant roots and twigs, with the diner having to find Waldo in the mix. Bull penis is more about texture than taste, but the broth imparted a nice flavor. Between the gristle-like pieces and the fatty component, I favored the latter although some of the other diners found it to be “slimy”.

The spoon holds a future generation of roosters

The spoon holds a future generation of roosters

After slurping down the hot penis (did I really just say that?), the chef brought out a live sea urchin that was spared the axe so that we could see the living creature accompanied by a dish of ice with close to 100 uni hanging off the plate like Leonardo DiCaprio on his makeshift Titanic raft. Uni is known as an aphrodisiac for several reasons: for starters, they are (and most assuredly look like) the female gonads of the sea urchin. In addition, uni is said to produce anandamide, a compound that stimulates the human dopamine system. Each diner was given a small dish with a wasabi/soy sauce blend with uno of the uni ceremoniously plopped into the brackish bath, but after eating the first marinated sac we simply started plucking them from the mound. After making short work of the unit a steaming crock of lobster segments were brought out accompanied by vegetables and garnished with cilantro and what looked like garlic. Upon closer inspection, the garlic turned out to be what the locals call “rooster fries” (the rooster’s calling cards that put the “hen” in “hentai”). I had enjoyed “chicken nuts” in hot pot previously and noted that they usually formed a larger pair, but I’m guessing these were the by-product of emasculation for capon creation. The taste was unmistakable: a little like a cross between a light liverwurst and egg white with a high fluidity. The thing that was odd was the combination of the lobster and cock balls in the same dish, a double-dose of well publicized aphrodisiacs.

Rich and tasty eel rice

Rich and tasty eel rice

The next dish was a pot of eel rice, complete with a variety of greens, wispy noodles and chunks of bacony pork. The eel sat almost whole on the top of the rice and were removed to a separate plate for distribution – they were moist, flavorful and unencumbered by the standard dousing of brown sauce. Eel is said to promote good eyesight and brain function so it may not be a good dish to have on a blind or first date. Chef Liang presented his omnipresent deer meat with leeks and star melon, mellow, meaty and sure to perk up your circulation (and we all know how important blood flow improvement is for an aphrodisiac); it also cures that acne that’s preventing you from finding Mr. or Ms. Right (or so I am told). The cold and refreshing greens with cellophane noodles and goji berries pleased the vegetarians in the group but also provided a nice diversion from the meat-laden meal. A cold steamed chicken dish with greens, seaweed and peppers seemed somewhat out of place at an aphrodisiac dinner, but I can’t argue that it’s always nice to bring your date back down the earth once you’ve scared the bejeezus out of them with a gonad chow-down. As with most of the elaborate feasts at Hop Woo, the dinner was capped with a bowl of medicinal digestive soup, rich and murky but not unpleasant – the fun part of having the soup is playing Guess the Ingredients, a game that everyone at the table seems to lose to the house every time.

A plate designed to show off the goji berries

A plate designed to show off the goji berries

If your romantic life needs a little kick start, Hop Woo’s aphrodisiac dinner may just be what the doctor ordered or it may just be a collection of foods with mystical, erotic mumbo jumbo surrounding it – either way someone’s sexual organs will be getting a workout, even if it’s other members of the animal kingdom.

Hop Woo
845 N. Broadway Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
GPS Coordinates: 34°3’48.88″N 118°14’16.05″W

GALLERY: See images from Hop Woo’s aphrodisiac dinner

Read The Minty’s, Eddie Lin’s and Vivianne Lapointe’s take on the aphrodisiac dinner
Listen to the KCRW segment on the aprodisiac dinner

NOTE: This cost for this meal was provided by the restaurant. The content provided in this article was not influenced whatsoever by the organizer of the event

 

Posted in Asia, Trippy Food (Tasty flora and fauna) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Secret Service

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Val

Secret Chinese menu

Hop Woo, Chinatown L.A.

Yes, that is armadillo shell in the soup

Yes, that is armadillo shell in the soup

In the new vernacular, sitting down for a meal at a Chinese restaurant and having your chopsticks automatically replaced with a fork is referred to as being “whited”. Of course, one could argue that the waiter’s assumption of your eating utensil of choice is minor when you peel back the proverbial onion and discover that a considerable amount of Chinese restaurants have alternate menus: the Chinese menu, and the “secret” menu. I recently had the opportunity of joining food personality Eddie Lin on a fact-finding mission to Los Angeles’ Hop Woo restaurant in Chinatown to dive beneath the pages of the English language menu and discover the secret pleasures of the Chinese and secret menus. The Chinese menu is just that – a small, Little Black Book of Chinese cuisine printed completely in that language. Chef Liang was kind enough to read items from the menu and present some of the more exotic entries in their naked glory. The evening began with a platter of BBQ chicken feet of Himalayan proportions (somewhere a genius entrepreneur is making a fortune selling avian wheelchairs). I’m not sure these were on the Chinese menu – they seemed to be a conversation starter. While not as tender as the dim sum variety (phoenix talons), they made up for the labor required to extricate the meat in flavor – they were lightly coated in a delicious sauce and tossed with peanuts, black beans, green onions and chopped chilis.

Hair vegetable, a desert-grown bacterium

Hair vegetable, a desert-grown bacterium

Chef Liang described the dishes in a variety of languages – in Cantonese with Eddie, in Mandarin with Mary (his friend and translator who joined us for dinner) and in Spanish with Claudia (a language he mastered while working in Mexico). I felt as if I needed the ear buds used by representatives of the United Nations for translation, but there was enough English being bandied about for me to understand what was going on. The meat in the first dish was described as “anteater”; Eddie surmised this to be aardvark (having watched one too many Pink Panther cartoons) but when a bit of shell was visible in a ladle of the soup presented it became apparent that the insectivore in question was in fact a nine-banded armadillo (yes sir, we were fixin’ to eat Texas Speedbump Soup). As with many of the dishes presented that evening, the armadillo soup is said to have healing properties – it is reputed to benefit the kidneys and lower back. Finding the edible armadillo meat was a challenge since the dark, earthy broth hid chunks of pork as well – in this dish, armadillo was “the other white meat”. Menu Item #2 looked like pasta rosettes but turned out to be goose intestines. These were cleaned remarkably well (the nose never lies) and mixed with three kinds of mushroom (drumstick, straw and shitake) taking on their woodsy flavor.

Deer with star melon and leeks

Deer with star melon and leeks

Prior to Menu Item #3’s grand debut, Chef Liang brought out a dish of one of the ingredients that looked like some kind of aquatic insect larvae or a bad toupee being soaked but turned out to be bacteria referred to as “hair vegetable”. Nostoc flagelliforme (try asking for that at your friendly neighborhood farmer’s market) is green when it is “fresh” but turns black when dried prior to being reconstituted in water. Since the Cantonese name (faat choy) is similar sounding to the phrase for “good fortune”, it is a popular ingredient in dishes eaten during Lunar New Year. The hair vegetable was only one of the components of the next dish, which featured oysters that had been dried three times in the sun prior to cooking. The mound of oysters were sitting atop chunks of pork, capped with a large mushroom button and covered in a rich brown sauce, and although the hair vegetable didn’t offer a great deal of flavor, it dissolved delightfully on the tongue. Prior to Menu Item #4’s arrival, there was much international discussion about kneecaps which was lost on me until a disk of crispy fried chicken knees were placed on the table. It only stands to reason that if you’re robbing Chicken Little of his mobility by lopping off his feet you might as well kneecap him while you’re down there. These crunchy bites were pretty tasty – I’ve sometimes chewed the cartilage off the joints in a chicken leg, but Chef Liang made the amount of work required negligible and created a tasty snack in the process.

Tasty testes (lamb)

Tasty testes (lamb)

Deer meat is said to have properties that benefit blood circulation and clear complexion, but I never have to be sold on chowing down on the Bambi platter. The odd thing about Menu Item #5 was that cooked with leeks and an unusual cucumber-like vegetable called star melon, the deer mellowed out, losing its sometimes wild flavor. The flesh was tender and moist and was by far the best venison dish I’ve eaten to date. I’m not sure Claudia was paying attention when the final item from the Chinese menu was brought out – she placed one of the small, brown disks in her mouth and said it didn’t taste much like lamb to her until I illustrated that she had never had that part of the male lamb before. I’ve had “lamb fries” at Cattlemen’s Steak House in Fort Worth previously and found them to have a tofu-like, spongy consistency that I didn’t much are for, but Chef Liang’s preparation was delicious and had a firm, rich texture. There were two sizes of the medallions with a slight variation in color; Chef Liang explained that this was due to the age difference in the donors.

Fried chicken knees (seriously)

Fried chicken knees (seriously)

We ended the meal with a medicinal soup meant to aid in digestion; it contained various roots and tubers and big chunks of what tasted like a cross between yucca root and a cord of firewood. We didn’t sample any items from the secret menu since it’s printed in Chef Liang’s head – the secret menu is whatever you request that they happen to have the ingredients for on hand. In fact, if you request something that they can’t make on the spot, Chef Liang will let you know when he can get the ingredients and invite you back to enjoy your fantasy meal. I never cease to be amazed at the unusual dishes at Hop Woo, and I’m sure many other Chinese restaurants have similar items that aren’t on the Bubba menu. One thing is certain – when I sit down for my next meal at a Chinese restaurant I will muster my best polite smile and say, “Cobra, please”. Ancient Chinese secret, huh?

Hop Woo
845 N. Broadway Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
GPS Coordinates: 34°3’48.88″N 118°14’16.05″W

GALLERY: See images from Val’s secret Chinese menu adventure at Hop Woo

Listen to Madeline Brand of KPCC with Eddie Lin experiencing the secret menu at Hop Woo

NOTE: This cost for this meal was provided by the restaurant. The content provided in this article was not influenced whatsoever by the organizer of the event

Posted in Asia, Trippy Food (Tasty flora and fauna) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Don’t Pooh-Pooh the Pupusa

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Val

Pupusas

El Salvador

Pupusa ruvuelta topped with curtido

Pupusa ruvuelta topped with curtido

Pupusas have been part of the Los Angeles food culture since the 1980s influx of Salvadorans during civil war in their homeland. Salvadoran and Central American restaurants grill up pupusas by the thousands on a daily basis from windowless shacks to tablecothed bistros, with each carrying the basic three or four varieties and then throwing in one or two unique variations on the theme. To enjoy this simple yet filling food of the people of El Salvador for thousands of years, you need not look farther than your friendly neighborhood pupuseria (which admittedly sounds like something requiring Kaopectate). Pupusas are made from masa de maiz, slightly different than the corn masa used to make tamales; in some cases nixtamal is used, which starts with masa made from hominy (corn soaked in an alkaline solution), while other pupusas use masa harina (flour) or rice flour (in the case of pupusa de arroz). Most are filled with Salvadoran cheese (quesillo) and some other substance such as beans, meat or vegetables. Fillings can be deceptive – a pupusa de chicharrón does not contain the crispy fried pork skin we’re accustomed to, but ground pork filling instead. The pupusa revuelta contains chicharrón, beans and cheese and pupusa de loroco is stuffed with cheese and the flower buds from the Central American loroco vine, a vegetarian delight that tastes like a cross between baby asparagus and tender broccoli stems.

The ensalada at El Chipilin (L) and La Nueva Flor Blanca (R)

The ensalada at El Chipilin (L) and La Nueva Flor Blanca (R)

The Minty (as she is known in blogging circles) recently organized a pupusa crawl along a one mile stretch of L.A.’s Beverly Boulevard. The idea was to hop from one pupuseria to the next, an easy and inexpensive adventure considering that pupusas range from one to three dollars apiece. The first stop was Atlacatl, a popular restaurant that looked like a movie Mexican restaurant, complete with what looked like velvet paintings of iguanas and armadillos (which I secretly prayed were menu items). Some of the crawlers ordered ensalada (which I pictured to be something like a basic garden salad but turned out to be a Salvadoran drink). This sweet and fruity concoction featured finely chopped fruit, including apples, mamey, and what looked (but didn’t taste) like cilantro. The juice figured to be an apple/pineapple mix, and the cool, sweet beverage would have been perfect with a shot of rum in it. Even though our host said that the pupusas were small, I knew I’d have to pace myself to hit the five designated pupuserias. I sensed danger when the pups began arriving, with each being about 8 inches across. I ordered the loroco, which tasted more like it had a filling of broccoli cheese soup rather than the taste of asparagus as advertised, and after enjoying the pupusa it was off to our next stop.

El Chipilin, home of beer with breakfast

El Chipilin, home of beer with breakfast

El Chipilin is a simpler place with mismatched silverware and dishes, but in my opinion featured the most flavorful pupusas we sampled. I ordered the mild pupusa ruvuelta which wasn’t the all-out assault I thought it would be, and I liked the texture of the dish. One of the other guests allowed me to sample of pupusa de chicharrón which had a smoky aroma and firmer texture that was superb. Those who ordered ensalada to go with their pupusa got an unusual surprise – the inclusion of nance, a small yellow fleshy fruit with a pit almost as big as the fruit. Apparently there was a sale on nance since each glass held what seemed to be hundreds, looking like a myriad of little eyeballs peering through the glass. The benefit of our next stop (La Nueva Flor Blanca) was sitting next to the glass half-walled kitchen which gave us an opportunity to watch them make the pupusas from scratch. I ordered the pupusa de chicharrón (which I wisely negotiated going halfsies with one of the other diners), but was slightly disappointed after the meaty disk of joy at El Chipilin. We had planned a stop at El Carbanero (whose sign advertised 99 cent pupusas) but in my limited knowledge of Spanish I determined that you can only get the discount pupusas on Mondays and Thursdays.

Our chef prepares pupusas at La Nueva Flor Blanca

Our chef prepares pupusas at La Nueva Flor Blanca

With our Salvadoran ballasts sloshing around, we skipped El Carbanero and headed for the last stop – the fancy Jaragua. The first thing that catches the eye at Jaragua is their pre-Colombian jungle-themed bar at the end of the room; in fact the drink menu was almost as big as the food menu. In addition to the old standards, I noticed a squash and cheese (ayote con queso) pupusa that I just had to have (and halve). As upscale as the surroundings were, the pupusas were still in the $2.50 range, and the delicata squash and cheese pupusa I ordered did not disappoint. From the first stop I noticed that the condiments were almost identical; a watery hot sauce and jars of curtido (a light mix of shredded cabbage, carrots and jalapenos in vinegar). I had had curtido before at the San Fernando Festival, using it to top a cheese and potato pupusa – to me it is the perfect substitute for otherwise bland cole slaw. I could eat a bowl of curtido all by itself, but it was remarkable that we had gone to four different pupuserias with not the slightest different in the taste of each restaurant’s slaw.

A woman at the San Fernando Festival makes pupusas by hand

A woman at the San Fernando Festival makes pupusas by hand

It’s amazing how quickly you can fill up on pupusas, but they’re rich and flavorful, the perfect easy-to-eat street food. With a variety of fillings it’s easy to buy one of each and share with your friends, but moderation is in order – you don’t want to end up going home in a pupusa crawl.

Atlacatl
301 N. Berendo Street
Los Angeles, CA 90004
GPS Coordinates: 34°4’35.34″N 118°17’40.61″W

El Chipilin
4170 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90004
GPS Coordinates: 34° 4’34.17″N 118°18’1.08″W

La Nueva Flor Blanca
4271 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90004
GPS Coordinates: 34° 4’34.93″N 118°18’6.48″W

Jaragua
4493 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90004
GPS Coordinates:  34°4’34.90″N 118°18’24.35″W

GALLERY: See images from The Minty’s pupusa crawl and pupusas at the San Fernando Festival

Read The Minty’s recap of the Pretty Please, Pupusa Crawl Along Beverly Boulevard

Posted in South and Central America, Trippy Food (Tasty flora and fauna) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments