El Zocalo dishes up late night treat
By Nick Palm
The Guardsman
In the heart of the lively Bernal Heights corridor of Mission Street lies an easy-to-miss gastronomic treasure.
El Zocalo, located at 3230 Mission Street between 29th and Valencia streets, serves traditional Mexican and Salvadorian food and is known for their pupusas — corn flatbread filled with customizable combinations of meats, beans and cheese.
With an abundance of watering holes in the area and a closing time of 4 a.m., El Zocalo has become a late night hot spot for hipsters and hungry drunks alike.
The restaurant was nearly deserted when I walked in on a Wednesday afternoon. The other customers all kept to themselves, seeming hypnotized by both the music in their headphones and plates like chile relleno, tamales and fried yucca.
If you come looking for great service or decor, don’t bother. Their food speaks for itself.
I started off with a glass of horchata, a traditional Latin American drink made with rice, almonds and cinnamon. It’s hard to go wrong with horchata, and they do it well at El Zocalo.
After polishing off a basket of fresh house-made tortilla chips, I dove into plates of pupusas revuelta and yuca frita con chicharron.
The pupusas, filled with pork and cheese, were delicious. The corn dough was soft and fluffy, and browned on the griddle.
The yuca frita con chicharron – fried yucca and fried pork – was still good, but held no ground to the pupusas. The yucca was great when dipped in salsa, but the fried pork seemed overcooked and hard to chew.
My whole bill was about $15. As pupusas are only $1.90 each, I could easily make another trip here for under $10.
El Zocalo is a great place to grab a quick, inexpensive bite or subdue a case of late-night munchies. Their most expensive menu items are around $8, so a starving student on almost any budget could fill up here and still have enough for a BART ride home.
Take it from me: Go for the pupusas, stay for the pupusas, and leave only when you can’t fit any more pupusas into your mouth.