Snack Time: Spicy pupusas and soccer fansSFBG's Juliette Tang gets a little satisfaction.
What do you do if you find yourself in the Mission District at 4:00 PM, don't want to ruin your appetite for dinner, but really really need a snack, so direly that you're acting like a cranky bitch toward your friends? I found myself in this predicament yesterday, and as I gazed longingly into my purse (as cavernous and empty as my stomach) I knew that plunking down $8 for grilled veggies at Bi-Rite was beyond the realm of possibility.
But budgeting constraints shouldn't mean that my only snack option is a can of Pringles at the Walgreens at 16th and Mission, and lucky for me, San Francisco has a cornucopia of cheap snack options that are as equally appetizing to the palate as they are the bank account.
This particular Sunday, I made my way down to Balompie Cafe, a Salvadorean restaurant on 18th Street that's a favorite of soccer-watchers (check the screens) for a much-needed and budget-friendly $2.50 pupusa con loroco.
Pupusas are thick corn tortillas filled with ingredients that can include queso cheese, refried beans, chorizo, ground pork, spinach, or my favorite, loroco, an edible flower from El Salvador that tastes like a nuttier version of chard. To put it poetically, the experience of eating a pupusa is like a mix between eating a personal pizza and a taco. Pupusas arrive bare on your plate, like a ripe, fleshy pouch of complex carbohydrates. You, the eater, then decorate your pupusa with sour cream, salsa, and curtido, a blend of pickled cabbage and spicy peppers, in as artistic or slovenly a manner as is your want.
Pupusas are a rich comfort food that consist of two servings each of fat and carbohydrates, and probably less than half a serving of vegetables. While they are not a health-conscious diet food, as long as you know what you're getting into, pupusas are definitely satisfying for a greedy stomach. After eating one pupusa, my stomach was more full than eating a half-sandwich but less full than eating, say, a super vegetarian taco. Considering the level of my hunger, this was the perfect snack to tide me over until dinnertime. Definitely a $2.50 well spent.
Balompie
3349 18th (between Capp and S. Van Ness)
(415) 648-9199
www.balompiecafe.com
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