La Santaneca

• Cuisine(s): Central American, Cuban
  Hours: Sun,Tue,Wed,Thu 10:30am-11pm, Fri-Sat 10:30am-3am
  Price: $, $$
• Payment Types: All Major Credit Cards, MasterCard, Visa, cash
  Features: Takeout
  Serving: Brunch, Dinner, Late Night, Lunch
• Alcohol: None
  Reservations: Accepted
  Parking: Street

Description

More than 30 years since it opened, this Excelsior restaurant is still one of the city's best Salvadoran restaurants. The ceiling sparkles with a thousand icicle lights, and the room often reverberates with cumbia from the jukebox or guitar-hoisting musicians. La Santaneca's pupusas -- griddle-cooked corn or rice cakes stuffed with cheese, beans, or pork -- are good, the curtido (spicy pickled cabbage) particularly piquant. The yuca with chicharron is fried to a golden crackle, and the banana-wrapped tamales de chipilin approach the lightness of a meringue. Drinks range from toasted-seed horchata to tiste, a Frappuccino-like blend of roasted corn and cacao beans.