Emporio Latino
243 Augusta Avenue
416-351-9646
Lunch for 4 (2 adults, 2 kids) including drink and tax: $15

Well, I’ve never been to El Salvador. I’d love to go, but thus far it hasn’t been in the cards. Luckily I live in Toronto, about a 15-,minute walk from Kensington Market. A Saturday afternoon visit with my sister who has lived in Latin America for many years, her infant son and my 3-year-old daughter takes us past the fish mongers, punk rockers and butchers to the tiny Latin American shop aptly titled, Emporio Latino. From the street, it looks like a small grocer’s, the entrance piled high with baskets of colourful beans, peppers, tomatillas in green husks, frozen packs of banana leaves, ripe plantains and just about anything else you can imagine. If you venture in beyond the bulk items and South American packaged goods however you’ll find what seems to be, again as someone who has never been, an authentic El Salvadorian street vendor, tucked away in the back of the shop.

Above the cash we find a chalkboard menu with prices for everything hovering around three dollars. Crispy deep fried tacos, enchiladas, fried plantains with a choice of cream or cheese, tamales, burritos and les pieces de resistance, a selection of pupusas - flattish cornmeal pancakes stuffed with a choice of cheese, shredded pork or beans. We order tacos, plantains with cream, pupusas with the works and are handed a tiny slip of paper we’re told to hand to the woman in the back. No problema.

We crush through about 12 people also waiting in the back for their meals, hand over our slip and settle in for the kitchen show. I raise my daughter to watch as the woman in the back deftly scoops up hunks of corn flour dough, slaps them flat between her hands, reaches for smaller handfuls of the pork, beans and cheese, folds them into the dough and slaps them closed, the filling disappearing into the soft mass. These she slaps onto a wide flat grill where they begin to sizzle. There’s a lot of slapping. “Are those the papayas?” my daughter asks pointing. The woman laughs and says “Si! Pupusas!”

Five minutes later our order is called. We’re handed disposable plates piled with mushy plantains slathered with a creamy sauce, crispy tacos and the papayas, er, pupusas. We’re asked if we’d like coleslaw for these, yes, and hot sauce, also yes. For the kids, they suggest a mild tomato sauce and we’re glad they did. We slowly wind our way back through the store, past the cash and down the stairs to a small eating area near the front. We dig in immediately. First the tacos. Skinny and cigar-shaped, these are nothing like your run of the mill Taco Bell processed taco. With a shell that crunches to reveal mouthfuls of lightly spiced shredded chicken, noticeably absent is the oozing sauce and sour cream one typically associates with tacos. This, we discover, is a good thing. These we follow with the main course, the pupusas. As with all good street food, these are the kind of thing you want to “get into ya”, and quickly. Slightly toasty on the outside, the inside is a melted mash of the filling cooked and steamed inside the dough. As a complete package, they’re a touch on the dry side so the moist ‘slaw on top is a nice add on. They’re gone in moments. For dessert, we divide up the plantains which round out our lunch with a mild, creamy sweetness. An aside: these taste nothing at all like bananas. Amazingly, the kids have finished everything we’ve put in front of them.

Post visit, I’ve still never been to El Salvador. I do feel as though I’ve at least stopped at a bus station on my way through for some lunch. I’m planning my next stop soon. Que Rico! Or something like that.