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| - My first pupusa experience was at a farmer's market in LA during a whirlwind California trip. I thought those pupusas were fantastic. And then we stumbled unpon Pupuseria La Bendicion...
The friendly woman behind the counter handed us a order form/checklist. Husband had a hard time getting me to focus on the checklist because I was enamoured by the pictures of food posted above the counter. He finally managed to grab my attention long enough for me to yell 'Pork and cheese pupusa! Tamales!' until the long strips of plantain bubbling and sizzling in a cast iron pan of hot oil earned my focus. Cast iron pan....not fryer...just a cast iron pan, like the one your grandma probably handed down to your mother who then gave it to you. At this point, I knew the food was going to be good.
The restaurant is a true hole in the wall including plastic tablecloths that (on a HOTand sunny afternoon) wrap around your bare knees/shins and cause rivers of sweat to run down your legs. Gawking unashamedly at every plate of food that was delivered to tables around us kept me distracted though. Everything looked good - pupusas, cabbage, fried chicken and rice, tall styrofoam glasses of fresca de frutas.
And then our food arrived and boy, do these pupusas overshadow the ones we had before! My taste buds reveled in the soft but crunchy, melt in your mouth, cheesy, porky goodness of the pupusas, the crunch of the shredded cabbage, the balanced tartness of the tomato salsaesque sauce (husband spooned it up like soup) and the hearty steak tacos. It was extremely hard to not run to the counter and place a second order but we had committed to trying out the beers at the Market Garden Brewery later.
They were out of tamales when we were there - no worries, we will be making the drive from Cleveland Heights soon enough. Maybe not in shorts though...
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