Native to El Salvador, pupusas are thick corn tortillas, stuffed with a variety of fillings. The round tortillas are cooked on a griddle and served with a pickled cabbage and carrot slaw called curtido. Popular fillings are chicharrón (finely ground pork), cheese & loroco ( an edible flower), and revuelta (cheese, pork and beans). Pupusas in New York are no longer a secret or hard to find, but they are a recent addition to the NYC food scene, becoming very popular in the past 3 years. For this blog entry, my plan is to compile an ongoing list of where to find the best pupusas in the city. For now, I will focus on a Central American restaurant in Far Rockaway called Tacos y Mas. First, you have to get past the name of the restaurant. It doesn’t exactly ring with authenticity. Don’t tell that to the tight knit Latino community in this remote section of SE Queens. This place is bustling, from breakfast to dinner. For my taste buds, it’s the best Mexican and Central American food I’ve had in NYC. I’m not an expert by any means in Mexican food, but my wife and I have traveled the entire length of the Yucatan peninsula (twice), from the Belize border (Xcalak) to the northern most point (Isla Mujeres). Tacos y Mas delivers the same quality, style and taste we’ve had in Mexico. Now, to the pupusas…made fresh to order each time, and simply fantastic. The revuelta pupusa was my favorite, but all of the pupusas shine, especially when you add the curtido. Pre Hurricane Sandy, Rockaway Beach had a fantastic Salvadoran restaurant, La Joya de Ceren, which is where I first discovered pupusas. Unfortunately, they suffered extensive damage from the hurricane, and we can only hope that they can find a way to reopen. While Tacos y Mas is not technically run by Salvadorans like La Joya de Ceren, they clearly have a handle on how to make incredible pupusas. I will continue to add restaurants to this post.
Quick History: La Joya de Ceren, an archaeological site and native village that was preserved under volcanic ash for over 2000 years. Cooking implements have been found at this site as well as other archaeological sites in El Salvador depicting the preparation of pupusas. Pupusas were very localized in certain cities and villages in El Salvador until the 1960’s when the Salvadoran population began migrating to other parts of the country. The civil war in the 1980’s drove Salvadorans out of the country to the US and Canada. The largest concentration of Salvadoran natives in the New York metro area are in Nassau County in Brentwood, Hempstead and Uniondale. In the five boroughs, Inwood/Washington Heights in Manhattan, and Flushing in Queens have strong ties to El Salvador.
Tacos y Mas, 1831 Mott Ave, Far Rockaway, NY
