Keeping a Low Profile
Ok – so I haven’t had much to say lately, mainly because I’ve been working a ton and haven’t had much time to hit a lot of new places. Worse than that, the ones I’ve tried have been definitely on the disappointing side, especially since a couple have actually been close to being good. In both cases, I had a very promising first experience but on the second trip was seriously let down.
Because I hate to trash some obscure little restaurant which, for all I know, I just caught on a bad day, I’m not going to name names, but the first one was a Mexican place on Railroad Avenue in Pittsburg (and that doesn’t narrow it down really at all).
Anyway, my first time in I had a gordita, which was good, and my son had a pastor sandwich which was excellent and made me wish I had gotten that instead.
Everything about this sandwich was great – bread, meat, just right. (The price was reasonable at $5.99 but no steal.)
So, when I was back in Pittsburg last week I thought I’d give it another shot. Now, I really love pupusas and so I decided to go for the pupusa, rice and beans plate which, at $3.95 seemed like it would make a fine lunch.
So, to be fair, the pupusa and the curtido were decent enough – nothing special but one might reasonably ask what one wants from a $3.95 lunch these days? Well, the problem was that the rice and beans weren’t hot – they were barely even warm. (As you can see in the picture, the cheese wasn’t melting even a bit.)
Cross it off the list.
My next disappointment was at a cavernous but promising-looking Salvadoran place which opened not too long ago in Concord. Here, on my first visit, I thoroughly enjoyed a couple of pupusas (revueltas) which were really an excellent lunch at $2.25 each.
So far so good. I stopped back by there earlier this week, looking forward to enjoying some Salvadoran tamales but instead faced the crushing disappointment of 2 mushy, over-steamed, disintegrating, poor-excuses for same.
To top it off, I encountered a large chunk of chicken bone halfway through the second one.
Cross that place off the list as well.
(Actually, I might go back again, but just for the pupas.)
PS If you don’t know what a pupusa is – and I can’t imagine that being the case with you – go here.
lunchburb 
I hear ya on the maybe the restaurant was on a bad day thing…
Since I didn’t grow here my knowledge of Mexican cuisine (even the basic stuff) was very minimal and I had a sharp learning curve. Even now I get stressed out writing a post on anything Mexican cause I don’t want to sound like an idiot, ha. Hope your food encounters get back into the groove of things.
I’m no expert when it comes to Mexican or Salvadoran, but I’ve eaten enough of it to know when it’s really bad… In any case, things are looking better on the food front and I will post on a place I like very much tomorrow (if I can get it together to do so).