Pupusas! Best thing our food editor ate this weekend

Seattle is having a Central American culinary moment aka maize madness with spots like Ballard’s Gracia and Downtown’s Bar Noroeste representing traditional southern and central Mexican cuisine with homemade masa and Arepa Venezuelan Kitchen bringing the carb-lover’s homemade, stuffed arepas to the U-District.

I’m currently purring over pupusas, a traditional Salvadoran dish you can find at spots like Guanaco’s Tacos Pupusas in the U-District and Lakewood’s El Pulgarcito. A pupusa is a thick, handmade corn tortilla than is stuffed and sealed with a number of ingredients, but most commonly with cheese and loroco, a native vine with edible flowers, or seasoned pork meat that is ground to a paste consistency and mixed with refried beans.

My favorite version is at Belen Pupuseria in Auburn. Oh man. The line was out the door when we stopped in this past Saturday on our way to Flaming Geyser State Park. It’s easy to see why. The pupusas are $2.10 and made fresh to order. They arrive hot, soft and pillowy with nary a drop of grease–just full flavor with the traditional pickled cabbage and carrot slaw to go with it. I ate mine so fast that I forgot to take a picture of it then proceeded to gorge myself on free chips, refried beans and spicy green salsa while I waited for my second order, which I also forgot to photograph. Saying I highly recommend this place is a huge understatement.

Pictured is an example of typical Salvadoran pupusas on the grill with permission from the Flickr user.