Restaurante Y Pupuseria Nery

We come here for the tamales. They have chicken, pork, beef, and cheese. Only $ 1.50 each and you don’t have to wait at all. Delicious. Great place to pick up a quick, cheap meal. Pay with cash and get it to go.

I went here with a group of friends last night. I wasn’t expecting much given the poor reviews here (I considered eating beforehand in case it was really bad). I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it’s a somewhat shabby little hole in the wall in the corner of a strip mall. It was clean enough; no worse than any other little Mexican place. One of my friends spoke fluent Spanish, and he did the ordering. As far as I can tell this is a mom-​and-​pop place; I assume the two people working were the owners. Both were quite friendly and polite to us. It took about 45 minutes to get the food, but you have to remember that making pupusas (especially for 7 hungry people) is a time-​consuming process. They’re not sitting in the kitchen under a heat lamp. The wait was about the same at the last Salvadorean place I went to (on El Cajon, looks like it used to be a Pizza Hut). All seven of us loved the food (we got a 4 plates of pupusa varieties; one cheese, one jalapeño cheese, one black bean, and one cheese with some sort of asparagus-​like vegetable). The cabbage served with the food was tasty, and we split a plantain. The pupusas were $ 3.50 each I think, but they were larger than a lot of other ones you see. As far as complaints about the ATM stealing your identity; that’s just silly. The place had a standard 3^rd-​party ATM with a $ 2.00 service fee; the 7 – 11 next door had a $ 3.00 service fee.
If you want some quality, hand-​prepared food and you don’t mind the less-​than-​glamorous setting, this is a great little place. I’d definitely go again.

I was actually walking over to Luigi’s to grab a couple slices when I walked by this place and decided to try it.
I did not read the Unilocal reviews first though. That was my first mistake.
When I walked in I asked if they take debit, since I had little cash on me. They said YES. Remember this tidbit for later on.
Sat down and ordered their pupusas special, pretty dirty place, more flies than I’d like were around and it was dead during peak lunch hours.
Also our waitress spoke little to no English.
While waiting for our food, I read the Unilocal reviews. If I had done this prior to ordering I would not have eaten here.
Our food came with chips and salsa, chips were fresh and warm and the salsa was pretty good. Also came with this pickled cabbage thing that I didn’t much care for.
Pupusas themselves were, ok I guess. I have no other frame of reference since it was my first time trying a pupusa.
I did like the chicken one the best out of the other bean and cheese options.
Finished and went to pay, you know how I said earlier they took debit?
NOPE… she handed back our card and pointed at the ATM machine.
So… I am not putting my card in this machine that SCREAMS Identity theft.
So I had to go to the ⁷⁄₁₁ close by and pay $ 2.90 in ATM fees to pay for a $ 12 bill.
Horrible experience. Will not come back.
Only good part of the meal was the Horchata, which was pretty good.

Based on the previous review I am glad I didn’t stay to eat!
This is a sad, but true story. My last pupusa was in San Fran back in the early 90’s. I will always remember how wonderful they taste! When I ran across this place I couldn’t wait to eat here! I walked in with my 2 kids. Ordered 8 pupusas to go. 45 minutes later I hear the rude woman in the back just beginning to pat them out. As I sat there all this time. I began to think. hmmm I don’t see a VISA accepted sign.hmmmm.why is there an ATM in this place… .so I asked a man who looked like he worked there if they take ATM card. No speake english… ooohhkaay! I asked the rude lady– Nope– this is a cash only joint. The ATM was broke, the line at the 7 – 11 was jam packed and the 7 – 11 ATM was down that day as well. I guess it was a sign and God was looking out for me and my kids… We just left. I did feel bad, but now I don’t. Food Poison is not good!

I love dive bars. I love hole in the wall restaurants. I like things off the beaten path and I don’t mind a little dirt in my life. Now I have found a great spot right by my house that has a lot of these features but for an added bonus they serve up, some nice good old fashioned food poisoning. YAY!!!
I have been three times now.
The first time: Service was horrible, actually it wasn’t bad. There just wasn’t any. I sat down, waited for someone. The lady in the back made eye contact. Then she walked away. I walked up to the kitchen to place an order, the cook told me to grab a seat. I grabbed a seat. Waited… Walked up to the front grabbed a menu and then the lady came over to me. The food was decent on the first trip. I had some crazy green sauce thing that I had never seen at other stops. It was different, not great, but then not bad.
Mental note: If they don’t want you there, they probably won’t talk with you.
Trip two: I had their version of pupus… it didn’t taste right. The only flavor was really one that you wouldn’t like. I paid for it for two days. I did get to use up some of my sick hours at work, so it wasn’t a total loss. But then everybody can have a bad day.
Mental note: If a place gives you food poisoning really think hard about going there again.
Trip three: I get the bistec plate. The plate had old food from a previous dish crusted on it. HAHA… and my dumbass just wrote it off and continued eating from the other side of the plate.
Mental note: Don’t eat off dirty plates.
The food wasn’t horrible, the hot sauce was good. But I ended up spending a Saturday in my house. Well, I actually spent most of the Saturday in the bathroom to be exact.
Mental note: Don’t allow yourself to eat here again.

A small dingy joint with small dingy food.
I usually like the looks but the food turned me away. I tried a pupusa and a tamale.
I think there needs to be a course taken on food safety by these staff. It looked as if they did not care much and were more preoccupied with novelas in the background.
See, the price our society pays because of those damn tele-​novelas.

Don’t waste your time. I went for pupusas since this place is about 2 blocks away from me and wished I had driven a little further.
I got there and the place was empty so I thought, «Awesome. I’ll get my food quick!» NOT! gave the waitress/​cook/​cashier my order (3 pupusas & plantains) and waited… 30 minutes! Seriously?! I was dying and so ready to walk out of that place! The only reason I stayed and waited was because I kind of felt sorry for the place. I didn’t want to be rude.
You’d think that for all the time it took to get my food ready that it would have been good but that was so not the case. The pupusas were awful! I’ve had better pupusas made by a friend’s 7 year old son!
When my order finally came, I was told my total was $ 13! WHAT?! the signs clearly said that the combo was $ 5.99 and if I had ordered the plaintain combo it would have been $ 5.99 as well. I only ordered the pupusas combo and got a side order of plantains! I didn’t feel like arguing because I knew she wouldn’t understand my broken Spanish anyway. I gave her the $ 13 and told myself never to go there again… And she had the balls to point to the TIP bowl!

If you like pupusas, check this place out. Basically a hole-​in-​the-​wall with some decent pupusas. Not the best pupusa I’ve ever eaten but good. Since there do not seem to be a slew of El Salvadorian restaurants in San Diego, this place is bit of a gem. They have a large menu selection and the staff that works there speak just enough English, which is usually a great sign to a good place! You can get two pupusas and a drink for $ 6. Cash only.

Not the best pupusas, but friendly enough service. The salsa was good, but they were out of chips the day we went. Something tells me this joint doesn’t operate at its full capacity or potential. It was kinda dirty and half-​ass. It’s in the new hood, so maybe I’ll try it again for convenience’s sake, but don’t make a special trip.

The pupusas here are hugely inferior to El Salvadoreno down on Imperial.

Just keep it simple at this hole– in –the –wall. The rolled tacos, beef tacos and carne asada tacos are excellent. But the pupusas, Milanesa and shrimp dishes are not very good. Its real cheap and the guy that serves is pretty friendly.

Completing the trifecta of 25^th and Broadway taco shop, Nery is visibly the least popular. Seeing as Humberto’s and Reyes are already pretty damn good at what they do, the only reason to go to Nery is for the Salvadorean menu.
So I went with my roommate Dan to try out the pupusas. The last time I had a pupusa was at a restaurant in San Francisco’s Mission, and man were they deelish. That was five years ago, and although my memory is getting fuzzy in my old age, I don’t think Nery’s quite live up to that experience. They gave us these styrofoam cups of watery salsa for flavor, but alas, quantity could not remedy quality this time. My pupusa was filled with cheese and some forgettable vegetable that looked a bit like asparagus tips. The cabbage salad was a bit watery too, but not bad.
They steamed yuca was delicious however. Sure I would have preferred fried, but they were out, and I should probably lay off the fried if I want to look hot at the beach this summer. Man do I love yuca, and as simple as it is to prepare it, this dish gets 5 stars.
We were the only people in the joint and service still took forever. We were greeted by a friendy fella will lots of gold medallions around his neck. There’s also a fairly large statue of the Virgin Mary at one table, a la Buca di Beppo.
Three stars because I didn’t get sick, I loved the yuca, and this place gets no love otherwise.