El Mercadito Nicaraguense

Visting from CA and this place is AWESOME!
Anything Nicaraguan you can think of, they got it. Their quesillo (tortilla filled with melted cheese and pickled onions) took me back to the days of my childhood where I would steal money from my mom’s purse so I could go out and get one. Delicious and worth it. Super cheap too.
Their picos are just like the ones in Nicaragua. All I needed was a cafecito and I would have been in pico heaven. A pico is a dessert but it’s made with a pastry filled with cheese and topped with sugar. It’s the only time I’ll eat a sweet/​salty combo without complaining.
I took pictures of everything else I couldn’t bring back and when I sent them to my family, they were all jealous. We don’t get this type of place in CA so I’m already sad that I can’t go back anytime soon.

This place is pretty cool. The ladies at the counter are nice and I’m forever grateful to them for recommending Carne Asada a few doors down to me. The market itself is pretty small, but they pack a wide variety of items in here. There are some kinda galletas de maiz here, delicious pan pico (Nica sweet bread with a lil cheese in it. Yummm!), pico duro, a few kinds of dulces en almibar, some mini and full-​size pineapple pastries that are pretty tasty, some empanada-​looking cookie-​like concoction (it’s not filled, but it’s tasty), those little merengue cookies, loads of powders for nica drinks like cacao, and more. They’ve also got refrigerated goods like lots of different sausages and cheeses, including that crema stuff (**ahem**, Claudia J.), and even some nacatamales in the display to your right as you walk in. And I almost forgot that they have those homemade Nica hot sauces with the chopped onions and peppers (chileros??). Prices seem quite reasonable. I think for a bag of 4 picos it was $ 3.50 after tax. Not bad since they’re huge. Oh yea, they’ve also got dried beans there, too, like those small Central American red beans.
I say come on in before your cookout this weekend and grab some sausages and grab some pan pico or pico duro for the drive home. All in all, this is quite the great little place, especially being that it’s so small. They’ve got it all for Nica cooking or Nica-​philes like me (for the food at least, lol)

i just love this market. its alittle hole in the wall that has a very large selection of authentic nica food. from pound cakes, to chesses, to beans, to juices and so on. whenever im in sweetwater i always need to stop here and buy a dollar or 2 worth of tortillas. the toritallas at this place are made fresh daily and come out warm when ordered.