El Pulgarcito

Located in a plaza on Chapman Avenue in Orange, El Pulgarcito bills itself as a Salvadoran restaurant and pupuseria – a specialist in pupusas, the national dish of El Salvador. Here, the freshly made corn pupusa tortillas are each $4, filled with your choice of pork, beans, sausage, or vegetables, plus cheese unless you order a vegan or pork version without dairy. Eight entree-sized soups range from beef and chicken to fish and shrimp, ingredients also found in a small collection of appetizers and entrees, almost all of which are under $20. Eggs, sausages, and plantains are offered during breakfast, as well.

We sampled the Salvadoran chorizo, shrimp in tomato sauce, multiple pupusas, and sweet plantain empanadas, all of which were at least good – though there were some higher and lower points. The pupusas were high points, with nice corn tortillas that came loaded with fillings, and the flavors in the chorizo, shrimp, and plaintain items were all tasty. That said, the sausage and shrimp portions weren’t particularly generous; plates are filled, somewhat sparsely, with vegetables and rice. Our recommendation is to treat entrees here as appetizers to share, and focus on the filling pupusas, instead.