El Paso Centroamericano Restaurant

As previous said, hole in the wall but the food is priced so good and it taste great!
This place deserves 5 stars, hard working employees as well.

Hole in the wall place on broadway that serves Salvadorean food, eg. Pupusas!
I was craving pupusas and happened on this place. Walked in and it has reggaeton to merengue, and other latin top 40s playing. A few tables inside and bar seating as well.
Speaking spanish might help some at this spot, but Im sure they’d accommodate you just as well seeing as their menus are bilingual. The lady working the order station wasn’t super friendly but def just did her job. No complaints and didn’t have to stand around waiting to order.
Okay, so for the food – I only ordered the pupusas (1 cheese and beans, one beans and pork rinds) and tamarind juice. The tamarind juice was sizable but a bit sweet (I don’t tend to like sweet things though.) The bean and cheese pupusa was DELICIOUS. The pork rind one was decent. I love that they packed them with a side of the awesome red sauce and their cole slaw. Also, at a 1.50 $ a pupusa, I can’t beat that deal!
Had to wait a good 10 mins for my order to come out but the music kept me distracted… I’ll probably order ahead and pick up my order next time. Also, looked around to the tables and the orders looked GOOD and really hearty. I’ll have to come back and try some of their bigger dishes next time.
Check them out!

Service is horrible! If your not a guy who is single and ready to mingle these waiters just totally ignore you.
I had to constantly flag them down for everything. Water. Our drinks. Napkins. Forks. Knives. Check. My change. It was ridiculous.
To top it off, it was pretty empty only two other tables with men.
So if you’re really cravin (pupusas) this go to 187^th and Broadway or call and pick it
the way, it take them forever to make them so don’t go there hungry. The service is much better and the food taste the same at 187.

Someone slammed this place for being small, how could someone judge a poor location when prices are soo reasonable. I go to this place about once a week, this place has the best lunch/​dinner special in the whole city I can put money on that. The special has rice, beans, salad and either grilled chicken breast or steak all for 6 dollars. The best part of it is that is made on the spot, you will know is fresh if you go there a few times, it always takes between 20 to 30 minute to get your order and it is always very hot. Taste is perfect never too much seasoning. Attention /​customer service is not the greatest but I won’t penalize them for it because I think the 2 servers get overworked and not paid enough for it, and I am pretty sure customers do not tip at all.

Confusing little joint. Functionally you have no idea if you’re to just grab a seat and wait to be served or just stand there looking stupid until someone comes to seat you.
Takeout is worse. There isn’t any place in the joint conducive to an over the counter interaction. There is a bar that has 4 seats that takeout orders are conducted from but reaching over and handing cash and receiving food in between bar patrons is odd.
The lighting is non existent but that is something you are well aware of while you’re outside looking in. Their only light sourcing is the ambient light and the neon lights that run along the perimeter. Other than that its pretty obscure.
The tables are squished so close together to the point there has to have been a fight or two in that joint just based upon space alone.
The loud jukebox and loud clientele are a bad mix. I didn’t realize I was in a night club.
They had about 20 customers in there but still. It took 5 minutes of standing behind the seated patrons at the bar for anyone who works there to as much as acknowledge my existence. And after I ordered and asked the wait time for takeout, I was told 20 minutes. Look. I cook my own food in 20 minutes. A quesadilla doesn’t take that long. The Chinese joint two doors down is half that amount of time.
I want to know how they make their horchata. The sweetness was too heavy. Rice flour and cinnamon I tasted. I think they spike it with their own sugar. Something was off.
The quesadilla was so-​so. It’s traditional — one tortilla on top of another tortilla with food in between. Not just one tortilla folded over which is good. But they smothered it on top with half sour cream and half salsa. Kinda like a half and half pizza. Also odd.
Total time from entry to exit (for takeout mind you) was 30 minutes which is 3x as long as I’m willing to tolerate.
You can tell they’re trying and they mean well but I will not be returning.

Solid joint. A special (steak) along with the pupusas (yes, you must try them) really the job after a full day of hiking. Cousin’s salmon was terribly boring, and his veggies quite disappointing. The pupusas are godly, honestly, you could just fill up on these. Beans and cheese – yes. My rice and beans were fantastic, and the steak was nicely seasoned, so that brings this joint up to 4. Waitress was whatever, not particularly accommodating to us outsiders, but she was pleasant to look at.

Pupusas. Just learn that world and learn to love them.
They are crack, mixed with harina, frijoles, queso and other goodies, and damn, I’m a fiend. I’d literally smoke these things if there was a way too. They make them so well here too, with a great number of choices as to what to throw in there.
I’d recommend the chicharron y queso, the espinacas y queso, or just the regular old bean and cheese. You can’t go wrong. Be sure to smother them in the cabbage and salsa, as that combination is lethal. So good.
So good, in fact, I’ve never really ordered anything else here. You really don’t need to. I’m sure the other food is equally delicious, but I’d much rather order 15 pupusas, gorge myself, and then fall asleep in my chair for about a half.
Mi gente de uptown, stop sleeping on this place. It’s a gem!

I don’t live in Washington Heights anymore, but my fiancé does. More or less.
Officially, his bed, his cat, and all of his things live with me in the Upper West Side. Unofficially, he’s a slave to the medical training system and never leaves the hospital. Woe is me.
«Is David even still alive?» my friend once said.
«Unclear,» I said. «Let’s check the kitchen.»
So we strolled into the kitchen, where I peered at the edges of the sink and spotted a few flecks of those telltale signs of life: espresso grounds.
«Using my deductive powers to analyze these coffee grounds,» I said, trying to look exactly like Benedict Cumberbatch from Sherlock, «it seems that as of 4:00 this morning he was still alive and of sufficient physical status to operate the coffee pot.»
«This is sad,» my friend said. «Your life is sad.»
Indeed it was. So I resolved to take time out of my busy schedule of unemployment and self-​loathing to spend more time having lunch with David in the Heights. The bad thing about this is, of course, that I have to leave my apartment and expose myself to sunlight and the world of the living.
But the good thing about this, it turns out, is El Paso Centroamericano.
I have a special relationship with pupusas, and the bean and cheese pupusas here really hit the spot. They’ve got a good ratio of filling to tortilla, truly excellent curtido (the most important part, in my opinion), and tasty salsa. On top of all that, they’re dirt cheap — so who can complain?
For the yummy food, friendly service, and great prices, they get four stars. But for making it possible for me to 1. visually verify that my fiancé is still a living person, and 2. use the words «Benedict Cumberbatch» in my review (how GREAT is that name!?), they most definitely earn the full Monty of all five stars.

PUPUSA! I am so happy this place is so close. They have delicious rice flour pupusas which I don’t see everywhere, and really tasty spinach and cheese, chicharron, and chicken pupusas. The big jar of pickled vegetables on the table sealed the deal (although it does strike me as problematic depending on how clean the table before you was…). Pupusas are no longer my conclusion to a drunken night out, but I am just happy they exist and are accessible on most days.

Yum! Great pupusas with all the usual trimmings of pickles and salsa. Nice and affordable too. They have all kinds of fillings including loroco (a flavorful flower) and can also make rice flour pupusas which are crispier on the edges. Beer is cheap and the ranchero /​reggaeton blasts pretty loud. Try the plato tipico Salvadoreno to add some diversity in your meal (including some tasty eggs.)
The waitress we had was nice and tickled at our halfways decent attempts to speak Spanish (if I do say so myself.) This place is steps from my girlfriend’s work at the NY Presbyterian so why fight it? I see myself here at least once a month.

cheap food. cheap beer. wish it weren’t so far away, but when i visit friends in the neighborhood, i always want to stop by.
the bean and cheese pupusas are my favorite.
everything else is pretty standard though.
still prefer the pupusas over the tacos though…
can’t beat $ 2.50 coronas either!

The food was good. Better than a lot of food I have had in the neighborhood… actually since I have been living in NYC.
I have been feinding for some gallo pinto. The moro at the Dominican spots doesn’t quite do it for me. The casamiento here was closer and it was good. It needed a little bit of salt, nothing I couldn’t handle myself.
I realized too late that mine and «the boy’s» orders were swapped and he got my cheese pupusa. (How’d it take me so long? I am ashamed!) I noticed some remainder cheese on his plate (you know, that cheese that seeps out when the pupusa is on the griddle and gets all brown. ohhh yeah) and immediately upon tasting… OMG there was the cheese. AMAZING cheese. I had his revueltas: one with beans and chicharron and the other with cheese and chicharron. The beans and chicharron was definitely better.
*Definitely* going back for my cheese pupusa and will update based on my experience.
The encurtido de repollo and the salsa were just okay. The encurtido wasn’t tangy enough and the salsa was just meh.
Oh and they charged me a grip for crema (sour cream). Probably would’ve been more bang for my buck if I’d ordered maduros (ripe plantains) with crema.
In the end, this place was okay. If you have had homemade pupusas or just awesome pupusas on the west coast, you might be a little disappointed. But, I mean, it’ll do.