El Comal

This was the second time I’d stopped here and it was pretty empty on a Tuesday night. I was greeted right away by the bartender who ended up being my server too. I knew I wanted pupusas, but I had to glance at the menu to figure out which type I actually wanted. He brought me a large water while I looked at my options and then he came back once he realized I knew what I wanted. I ordered the frijoles and Revuelta pupusas and knew that would probably be too much for me, but they’re just so darn tasty. The food took probably about 10 or so minutes to come out, but I’m sure someone is making these by hand in the kitchen, so they’re totally worth the wait. The pickled cabbage mix that comes out with these and hot sauce are the perfect combination and are so very delicious, the frijoles was my favorite. The 2 I ordered were too much, but I finished nearly 1.5 of them some how, haha. The food is quite rich, but I love stopping by here every now and then for some authentic Salvadorian food.

Came here on a Friday night. Plenty of parking outside, it’s right next to the Crossroads mall area. The place is moderately sized and wasn’t very busy.
We ordered 5 different pupusas, each for $ 2.50. All of them were delicious, but probably like the chorizo (sausage) and Revuelta (pork) one the best. Basically the pupusas are small flat buns made from tortillas filled with a filling and lightly fried. Reminds me of scallion pancakes. Also got the deep fried tilapia. It was super crunchy, maybe a bit too much, but was also pretty boney. It wasn’t bad but a little too much work. Next time I’d just get the pupusas. Those are great.
The service was a bit spotty. Though there weren’t many people, there was only one server, and he would be gone from sight in the back most of the time. It took a while for the food to come out.
The place was pretty quiet and nice place to just eat and chat. Until around 9pm. They bring out a DJ and start cranking the music, change the lights and have various dance party lights shining all around. Then it gets a little hard to talk. So I’d just come here in the early evening.

Love their food. Since moving up from California it’s been hard to find food that’s salvadorian AND good. If you are looking for as close to authentic as you can get in the area it’s definitely the place.

Went with some friends from work, and we mostly enjoyed our meal here. The service was excellent, and the food was pretty great — Pupusas were excellent, as mentioned by several reviews. I personally had the Salvadorean Platter, not being terribly experienced with food from the region, and enjoyed most of it. The exception was the tamales — I’m a huge fan of tamales, and these were much too soft (though flavorful). My platter more than made up for it.
The rest of the diners enjoyed their meals along the same lines — great Chorizo and eggs breakfast, great egg sandwich, great chicken & mushroom dish. Again, the tamales weren’t a hit with the rest of the diners either.
Overall I give this place ~3.5 (rounded up on Unilocal) — I’ll definitely be back, if only to have more Pupusas!

Great tasting food for great value. I wish I knew about this place earlier… it’s a little hard to find and looks more like a regular bar from the outside. Pupusas are great. i loved the Queso con Spinaca pupusa. my onyl complaint was that I had tamarindo here but wasn’t impressed (did not taste fresh).

Yum. Good food :)

I lived in El Salvador for a couple years. I love Pupusas. This place is solid, but not great.
The service is actually quite good. The El Salvadorian food is slightly better than average. I’m glad we have a place so close.
Keep making them!
The toppings and red sauce for the pupusas is what could improve, but overall this place is pretty decent.

First time here… Had 3 pupusas– cheese, chorizo, chicken… Enjoyd chicken n chorizo… Cheese one had a funky smell n taste for my liking… Adobado sandwich was pretty good… Tasted almost like chicken… D bread was delicious n soft… will cm back for d chkn pupusa n pork sandwich for sure… Service was polite but extremely slow despite just a couple of patrons in d restaurant.

Love their food, and the $ 2.50 Pusas! (I’m misspelling it here, but that’s how it sounds like)
The place never seems crowded, probably due to the poor location, but the Pusa’s are great, and worth a trip!

My hot wings were tangy, nothing to complain about there. My pupusa’s were bland and tasted somewhat microwaved. The beer I ordered was 5 $, and to be totally honest that was the highlight of my breakfast.

I feel like it is a universal truth that some of the best restaurants are hidden away in unassuming strip malls, and El Comal is definitely a part of that grand tradition. Hot damn.
I had my parents in town and was craving some Pupusas, so upon seeing the reviews we decided to swing by and check the place out. The pupusas were divine, and the Platano Relleno was insanely good as well’ why don’t we stuff more things in fried plantains? Everything should be stuffed in fried plantains. This should be a rule.
Quiet during lunch, but lovely and great service. So excited to doscover this place, and I’m sure I’ll be back the next time I’m at Crossroads.
To the person who complained that they couldn’t bring in outside food– really? C’mon now. Pull yourself together.

Gotta say… one of the best salvadorian restaurants I have ever been to. Service was great! Price is great! And the staff is very nice, friendly and family oriented. I recommend this place to everyone! Oh and you gotta try their pupusas! They’re so good that it makes me want to cry.

A little Hispanic, a little different, worth seeking out.
There’s a wide world of food out there, and I’m thrilled when a bit of someone’s home country makes its delicious way to our city. El Comal advertises as a Salvadorean restaurant, and although I have no expertise to judge their Salvadorean authenticity, I will judge their food as tasty, plentiful, and different from what you find in most taquerias around here.
We started with one of the two ceviche offerings, and the price seemed high for an appetizer, but the portion was in line with the price, not a little cup but a generous bowl of cilantro, celery and tomato infused chopped shrimp. The plantain chips were fabulous, a bit soft on the inside and crispy on the outside; the corn chips sadly just restaurant standard, which only served to highlight how good the plantain was.
For dinner, we somehow both ended up ordering Salvadorean comfort food. I had a meat-​stuffed plantain that was soft and flavorful and unique, something I’ve never had before but I’d love to have every Sunday night when I visit my Grandma. My wife’s chicken stew similarly evoked that warm, happy feeling with every bite of chicken and potato and stewed carrots, even though the flavor was quite different from the plantain. There were also a pair of apparently homemade tortillas with our meal, small, thick, and absolutely the best tortillas I’ve had anywhere.
I look forward to visiting here again when we’re anywhere near the Crossroads area, and you should too!

A 3-​star Michelin restaurant warrants visiting a foreign country just to eat at that restaurant. Does this place warrant flying across the country or ocean to eat at? Maybe not. Does it warrant driving over the lake to enjoy? Hell yeah!
I don’t write many reviews these days, but I felt like I needed to write one for this place, since I’ve been there at least 3 or 4 times over the past year and a half – I would go there much more often if only it were closer.
Anyways, if you enjoy Mexican food, you’ll probably also enjoy Salvadorean food. These guys run a clean, little restaurant on the east side, which shows soccer (aka football) games on their TVs, and have a projector for big turnouts I’m guessing.
Their food is top notch, and won’t break the bank. I’ve had their pupusas, and they were pretty good. By themselves, pupusas are a heavy, rather tasteless bread, but pair them up with something flavorful like the meat, and they’re just fine.
My girl and I would definitely recommend that you try the soups if you get a chance. They are huge (enough for 2), hearty, and full of good ingredients with a rich broth. They are the perfect dish for a cold day or when you’re feeling a bit under the weather. Here’s what each of the soups contain:
chicken soup — lots of chopped chicken breast, rice, carrots, some sort of squash (reminded me of a Chinese squash), great seasoning
beef soup — very tender beef flank, yucca, plantains, carrots, and zucchini
Lastly, the fresh salad drink is interesting, but I probably wouldn’t order it again. Also, they do takeout if that’s your thing.
Be sure to try these guys out!

If you find yourself here, I would back out slowly. We did not have a good experience. The wait staff was unfriendly and unhelpful.
One of the papusa’s was undercooked and the other under-​seasoned.

Salvadorean food! Despite spending my elementary and middle school summers in El Salvador, I can’t claim to know what legitimate Salvadorean food tastes like. But that’s a bit less important, because the food here is still pretty tasty.
Asking for recommendations when I was seated, I took my waiter’s suggestion for a cheese pupusa, and got a tamale and tartaleta in addition to it. And oh man, the pupusa was GOOD. Fairly simple, very hot, heavy on the cheese, and served with some pickled salad and spicy sauce. Highly recommended.
The tamale, unfortunately, was not what I’m used to: really mushy and soft cornmeal, rather than something a bit more dry and dense. And, while the tartaleta was also good, with tasty custard and fresh fruit, the crust itself was somewhat lackluster, and came off as store-​bought.
Showing up at an off time (I think it was 4 or 5pm), there was hardly anyone else in the restaurant, and service was pretty attentive as a result of this. They have their own private lot in this little strip mall, which was fairly empty when I was there.

If you want to try something different, delicate and savory, then you’re at the right place. We’ve tried many of their dishes: combo platter, shrimp and veggie, ganoa and corn soup. Everything was amazing! Much lighter than Mexican food. Personally, I think it’s much tastier too. Their «tortillas» are hearty and chewy and yummy. Great compliment to the dishes.
The two complaints we have are that the service is extremely slow. My guess is that everything is make fresh and it takes a while. All I can say is that there were only two or three other tables and we waited over 30 minutes to get our dinner. The other issue is that the portions are very small for the price, if you order the meal, not pupusas.
Overall, great food but make sure you have time to relax to wait for the food. This is a great dinner choice but not rush in and out lunch.

A very charming and very well-​run spot that’s…surprisingly hard to find. Not because the neighborhood is laid out strangely, or this place is really tucked away. It’s just nestled into the side of a hill, and you don’t think there are any businesses right there until it’s too late to turn. So look sharp about it… no napping!
It’s clean, brightly lit, brightly colored, very welcoming and very festive. The staff is super nice. The bikini-​clad latin dancers on the flat screens set a very positive ambiance for a certain kind of person. In a certain mood, with the right company, I am that type of person.
The food is definitely a journey into another culinary tradition. Not knowing anything about salvadoran food, I can’t comment on authenticity or interpretation or anything like that. But it was all delicious – plantains, pupusas, stew, everything we had on the table was flavorful and appealing. I was surprised, though, at the restraint in seasoning. I wouldn’t call the food bland, exactly, but the flavors were very subdued across the board. Very much a mild, comforting lineup of dishes. The chocolate flan dessert was particularly good.
I’ll happily come back, though I certainly won’t expect anything fiery. I suppose that might be why there were three different hot sauces on the table.

We like! Definitely a hidden gem.
For a couple people who had never eaten Salvadorean food, my BF and I were pleasantly surprised. The waitstaff was nice and attentive, a little slow, but good.
We had the Plato Guanaco (Salvadorean Platter) that came with 1 pupusa, 1 tamale, some fried yuca w/​pork and a fried plantain. It was super good. We also had some kind of mustard marinated slow cooked Top Sirloin I’m not seeing on their online menu (must be new?). It was very tender and bursting with yummy flavor… we loved it.
Thanks, Unilocalers, for steering us in this Salvadorean direction!

I’m sticking with five stars, after now dining here three times. Primary reason being the tartaleta dessert! This is a custard fruit tart that they make only after you order; it’s not something made hours in advance. The custard is fresh and the tartaleta crust is fresh hot from the oven. Fruit includes strawberries, papaya and blueberries.
Last night, JP ordered the whole fried tilapia fish, and it was excellent. I once again ordered the pollo crema con loroco, and it was wonderful as always.
But there is a caveat to my five stars… and that is… to come in for lunch (they have the same menu for both lunch and dinner). Service is excellent at lunch, but not so great at dinner. Our waiter plopped himself down at a table with some friends and chit-​chatted for far too long, completely ignoring us. However, JP tipped him generously because he thought the waiter was a nice kid but just needed to learn to be more professional.
Oh and too, the last two times I was here, the rap music from the kitchen had vanished, to be replaced by cumbia. When I was here with Penny, she was so surprised that la cumbia is one of my favorite music genres. But it is!
They have karaōke on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights (hours are 9:00pm-2:00am)
El Comal is closed on Tuesdays.