Last night, I decided to see what this Capitol Hill thing is all about. (The kids say it’s groovy up there!) So I ventured into Guanaco’s Tacos Pupuseria (in the same building that houses Hana and Kimchi Bistro, and which FoodNerd Angela Garbes raved about here).
My dining partner ordered a sampler with one pork tamale, one pork, cheese, and jalapeno pupusa, and one pastelito, a fried pastry stuffed with beef, potatoes, carrots and onions. I hadn’t eaten all day, so I ordered a different sampler (corn tamale, pork, cheese, and jalapeno pupusa, and refried beans) plus a steak taco.
The pupusas were excellent, crisp-edged cakes of masa filled with just the right proportion of meat and gooey cheese. The pastelito, meanwhile, was like nothing I’ve ever tasted—a football-shaped morsel of dark-fried dough encasing piping-hot, moist ground beef. The taco was a little tough and gristly, but everything was improved by the addition of a generous spoonful of tangy, thin red sauce and a chunkier salsa verde, both served icy-cold. (Apologies to Angela, but I found the curdito, a tangy, oregano-spiked carrot-and-cabbate slaw, a little weird).
With all that food, I didn’t quite get the bargain Angela did, but I did get out for just over $10 (avoid the tacos, which, at $2.85 each, aren’t worth it), making it well worth the venture up the hill.
