Izalco Restaurant

Very good food. Waitress was very busy but good service she was very nice and friendly. I loved the rice option of a Pupusas. The Salvadorian horchata was tasty my 4 year old niece even drank it. Tried my moms dish the full plater with tamal, friend Yuca, pork and more and it’s was all good!!! Can’t said to go back!

The food is always good but my gripe with this place is that they never answer the phone in a timely manner. I don’t really have time to sit and wait for the food to be prepared (it can take up to 35 minutes for food to be ready) I prefer to call ahead and pick up. Lately I’ll have to call multiple times before someone answers and they always sound annoyed when I want to place a order for pickup. While I really love the food the service is lacking and be prepared to wait for food.

Place is dirty no cleanses at all
Waitresses are very rude my hubby ask for a small sample of their version of rice water she said NO in a very rude tone. Second we told her we’ve never been here and to recommend us something she clearly said READ THE MENU YIKES it’s not my fault you have a boring life. Then are food came and it looked like they just through it on the plate and the food was Cold. So me and my hubby paid the bill and left to another restaurant with better service. This place won’t pass inspection and is not friendly I should havae listen to my parents when they said don’t go there.

So they serve burned platanos! Really had high hopes for this place considering I don’t have much of a selection on the south side of Chicago. Pupusas were average. Nothing that made me want to come back, but just enough to satisfy my craving of pupusas. Rice is mediocre, beans are dry, sour cream is delish, and plantains were good except for one that was burned. I asked for a less burned one and the waitress took it away. I waited and waited and waited until I finally asked what the hold up was. Waitress explains that since I sent it back and it comes from one plantain they wouldn’t be giving me another. The hell was that explanation!!! Service sucks. They take forever to make one pupusa (25 – 30 minutes). Never going back!

Tried pupusas for the first time and they were great. Service was good even though it took our food a little while to make.

WOW! Delicious food. I met some friends for lunch here on a cold Chicago afternoon. I have never had a pupusa and to my surprise it was tasty and satisfying with the right amount of cheese and beans wrapped in a corn/​masa thick tortilla. Perfection. I ordered the chicken soup/​broth with veggies, skipped the charbroiled chicken they offered. Soup was perfect for the winter cold.
Service was good. For non-​Latino people the service may appear to be not friendly but they are there to serve you good food and keep it coming. When they smile it’s authentic and real.
It’s worth the drive and beautiful to see the Latino community thriving with pride.

We visited Izalco specifically for these little things called Pupusas (
)
To me they sounded like a gordita but boy was I wrong. They weren’t anything like gorditas, they were a flavorless mush filled masa disc. That’s the best way I can describe it.
We also tried a tamale which was pretty basic. The one thing on the menu that I did like was the empanada de leche. A plantain crust filled with a sweet rice custard (arroz con leche) but that alone would never bring me back. In my opinion the food was mediocre at it’s best.
The service… a joke, literally, all I could do was laugh and giggle at it. Horrible. I think that Angela P and Aimee M perfectly described our experience perfectly (
) I just didn’t understand why we were being treated so rudely, no one deserves to be treated the way we were. I speak fluent Spanish and our waitress looked at me like I had three eyeballs whenever I’d speak to her. SMH
I’ve never eaten Salvadorian food and after this experience, no thanks.

Horrible service, and it’s not just the language barrier. We had two Spanish speakers with us yet we were blatantly ignored and requests for basic items, ahem plates?, went unanswered. We were pretty much called liars when we asked about the empanadas that never came out. The waitress told us we didn’t order them. Okaaaaay. I do remember my friend ordering it in Spanish AND pointing it out on the menu to her.
Mediocre food. These papusas just tasted like burnt quesadillas to me. The Empanadas were OK but seemed a day old. Its kind of sad that the best part of my meal was the soft drink – a Kola Shampan which tasted like cream soda.
If you’re lucky, you may get front row seats to a domestic dispute.
Oh and you can pee in the parking lot. Don’t know if you want to, but I guess letting your kids pee in the gravel is acceptable.
I love visiting hole in the wall restaurants but this was just a sad dining experience. Went home and made a turkey sandwich.

The Papusas were very good and unlike anything I’ve eaten before. We ordered two of each, but the best ones were the lorocco & queso and chicharron & queso.
The empanadas, deep fried plantain, filled with custard and covered in sugar, were my favorite part of the meal. They were piping hot, and I may have burnt some skin off the roof of my mouth, but it was worth it.
The Salvadorean Kola Shampan, aka Cola Champagne, aka cream soda, was really good. Essentially it was just a cream soda, but it’s a nice change from Coke and Pepsi.
Our group of five ordered a ton of food, and we were fed well for only $ 8/​person.
The service is awful. I’m not saying that because they don’t speak English. I expect that, in small businesses in ethnic enclaves, there is going to be a language barrier. However, two of my friends spoke very clear Spanish and we were still treated as if we were stray cats that wandered in. When myself (clearly a white girl) and my friend (clearly an Asian girl) arrived, we requested a table for seven (siete). They straight up refused to seat our group, but we didn’t understand why. A few minutes later, another employee intervened, and suddenly it was fine.
We asked for plates twice, and we were given three plates for five people. It appeared that our waitress was also doing some of the cooking and dishwashing, so perhaps it was an off night and they were short staffed. She came to our table to take our order, and halfway through, just walked away. We did not receive any refills on our drinks, we had to ask for refills on our chips, and we had to ask for our check. It’s a super casual place, so I don’t expect or ask for much, but it seemed that just wanting to sit here and eat a meal was too much to ask.
At the end of our meal, we noticed we hadn’t received our empanadas. When asked about it, the waitress said she didn’t write it down, and expected us to just accept that, pay for our meal, and leave. We did get our empanadas… eventually.
The bottom line is that the food here is really good. It’s close to I-​55, and since it’s right on 26^th Street, you’re not venturing off the beaten path into unfamiliar territory. They have a small parking lot, and there were plenty of spots on the street. I probably would not come back here though.

This was as close to authentic Salvadorean food as they como. Definetly try the popusas and do not confuse them for gorditas cause they are nothing like a gorditas. They also serve your traditional tacos, burritos, and tortas. Give the popusas a chance they are well priced for the size of the popusa. Buen provecho =)

I have been driving by this place for years but never bothered stopping by until last week. The place is clean and the service is fast. I ordered the tamalitos de elote and the platanos fritos. Very delicious.
You will not be disappointed. It is out in the middle of no where (on the outskirts of Little Village) but I prefer to see this place as a hidden gem.

the pupasas are 5 star worthy. unfortunately the arroz la valenciana was a hot mess.

Best pupusas ever. Though it’s not really difficult to get cheese wrong, they do it best here. A little on the greasy side, but in the land of starch and cheese you can’t be picky. Every time I order from this place we get the cheese and/​or the cheese and bean filled ones. The chicharrón option has always been a little funky to me because of it’s odd consistency. They offer some pretty awesome natural juices. To further the cheesy goodness, they sell a quesadilla cake that is very similar to an arepa and you can purchase either a whole portion or have them slice some to take home.

oh yeah Papusa’s for lunch today !!
so we are out and about and the bf wanted to check out a grocery store, off of Pulaski and 43^rd so after we did that I was like hey the guy in the city that we got Papusa’s at before said there was a place at 26^th and Pulaski, it is actually at 26^th and Kostner but hey that was close enough for us to find it and so glad we did as this is close to the house some what
nice place was not too busy at about 5 pm but not empty either and had orders ready for pick up, was all woman working here today
we sat down and got chips and salsa and some of the spicy cabbage and carrots to much on, then we ordered some Papusa’s and I got some rice also and the Plantain De Leche, this dessert treat is a deep fried Plantain filled with a cream and covered in sugar oh so good
the bf also got some soup it was almost like a chicken Pozole it came with onion and cilantro and fresh lime to add to it, if I had not already ordered more than enough food I would of got some soup also
this has a parking lot also you enter it off the alley behind the place
great place good food with great service we will be back for sure

Really good joint for pupusas my fav is queso con chicharon (cheese w/​pork grinds) omg there tooo die for… they have there own parking which is awesome because street parking in that area is horrible. If your in the area try this place out