Eliana's - 24th St & McDowell

Brien :

The other day, Kristi and I were trying to decide where the heck to go for our next review, and we went round and round, til I rememebered Eliana's. Eliana's is salvadorian for "good pupusas". ok thats not true, but i'd like to think that! I had been to Eliana's only once before, and it'd been over a year ago, but I knew kristi had been wanting to try it, so I suggested it, and she immediately said, "duh!" We were on for some salvadorian!

After work, I met her and our friend Rex there. Its right on 24th st just north of McDowell. Easy to find with the bright blue sign, that says, "Eliana's"! (Who woulda thought!) When you first walk into the place, its very... the only word I can think of is kitchy. I'm not sure thats entirely right, but there are knick-knacks and brick-a-brack everywhere. Very homey feeling, I think!

I was the first one there, and since I had been there before, I went ahead and got a tamarindo drink, which I love. The tamarindo drink is basically tamarind juice and cirtusy type juices. I'm a citrus-WHORE so it was awesome :) Very good! As I drank my drinkie-drink, Kristi and Rex arrived and we got started.

Kristi, of course will speak of her dishes, but for my dinner, I got their combo appetizer platter + 1 extra pupusa and an extra order of posteles. The combo platter has 1 pupusa on it already, along with 1 order of posteles and a tamale.

We got our food, and immediately, I started nomnomnoming on the pupusa. It was absolutely incredible! They give you some cole slaw and some tomato based salsa to go on the pupusas (or so I've read) and I just rolled the thing up, put some salsa and cole slaw and ate away. I was definitely in pig heaven. Next up was the tamale. I cut into the tamale and was slightly disappointed. It has way more masa (do the salvadorians really use masa for this?) than any filler. The filler it did have seemed like patato. I could be wrong on that but thats what it tasted and had the texture of. Not bad, mind you, but not great. Just... there. The posteles were INCREDIBLE. deep fried half moons of beef, potatoes, and spices were all together in a dough that was hard to place. These were comfort foods for the masses, let me tell you. I thoroughly enjoyed every bite, and had lots to take home!

One side note, I did get beans on my platter, and the beans were ok, though a little... bland for my taste. They really needed something to kick it up a little.. But for everything I got, the total was just above 10 bucks - not bad for dinner + lots of leftovers! :D

I give Eliana's 2 1/2 half-eaten pupusas out of 5!