Great El Salvadoran food just around 'La Esquina'

Great Honduran food just around 'La Esquina'

La Esquina means The Corner, and the owners, an El Salvadoran family, relocated their business to this unassuming corner location on Antioch Pike, after sustaining flood damage in May. It's a small, clean spot serving remarkable food at remarkably low prices. Foremost, La Esquina is a pupuseria, serving the pupusa, a hallmark of Salvadoran cuisine for three millennia.

These grilled corn tortillas come stuffed with a variety of fillings. At two dollars a throw, it's worth sampling several.

Simplest is the queso, which oozes mild white cheese; the frijoles-queso pairs cheese with a sultry smear of refried beans. Loroco is a small flower pod from a vine that grows throughout Central America; blended with the cheese, it imparts a unique green flavor, not unlike spinach or chard, but tangy. Chicharron features pork, cooked and ground to a paste. Mixta is just like it looks - a mixture cheese, beans, pork.

All these are tender, yet grilled to a nice outer char. The chicharron tends to be the only greasy one in the batch.