Ercilia’s Restaurant

Never had pupusas before, but they were pretty good, even my boyfriend agreed… they could be a little greasier though…

Muy deliciosa la comida pero tiene un servicio muy malo. Para. Entregar unas. Dos pupusas se estas una hora muy malo

I agree with former reviews mentioning the oddly long wait times. I’ve ordered from Ercilia’s several times, and despite never being exceptionally busy, I have had to wait over 30 minutes to get my small order of food. As well, the food is alright, but doesn’t stand out as exceptional or even close to being worth sitting around for such a long time.

I love pupusas as el salvadorian I know how pupusas should taste like! And this place knows how to make good pupusas. The place it’s always busy so it’s better if you called to picked up.!!
Pupusas de frijoles y queso are the best

Great pupusas. Everything is made to order, so there is a bit of a wait, but it’s totally worth it!

Great pupusas! Beans & cheese, shrimp, & amazing tacos! You have to try the horchatas: a sweet rice milk drink! Each comes with pickled cabbage cole slaw & a touch of salsa. Yummmm! If you like Jarritos soda from Mexico, they have most flavors. I really enjoy this place! Rustic, they take a long time, but well worth it!

Went there during lunchtime, it took a very long time to get my order. As I waited I saw others walk by me with trays of this amazing smelling and looking food, I was genuinely excited to rush back to work so I could dig in… I made the mistake of not looking at my order before I left, because if I had I would have left it there!!!
I ordered the ¼ chicken with black beans and rice and papusas, that was the driest least appetizing piece of chicken ever!!! The black beans and rice were flavorless and unappetizing… I was so upset that I threw the whole container in the trash. The only things worth eating was the papusa, it was delicious!!! I honestly wish I had bought 2 of those and nothing else!!! I really felt some kind of way because all of the Hispanic patron’s food looked delicious and mine was disgusting… Won’t be going back there again!!!

I won’t argue with everyone else who says the Papusas are excellent, because they are. But the whole experience isn’t worth the trouble. The man who works up front is honestly so rude and aloof. My beef is not with the fact that the food takes forever to make (which it does), but rather the dude’s bad attitude, refusal to make eye contact with customers, adding vague ‘misc’ charges to the bill, letting my food sit there while he just futzes around and refuses to give it to me, etc etc etc!

Chicken gallina sandwich was the bomb! Authentic taste, fair prices and good service. Love it.

I went here with my friends that were visiting and We decided to try this place out. Some of the Best Pupusas I’ve had in DC. I definitely recommend this place. Their horchata and tamarindo are also bomb! My friend tried their soup, which seem to be popular there.

pupusas were delicious and priced well. It was a bit of a wait for the food, but the pupusas revueltas was soooo good!

Mostly locals, great food and value. Not very good ambience since it’s plain and has just telenovelas going on but I come here for the food so it’s all good for me.

I love this place. You’ll have to be patient and wait around 10 minutes for your order, because pupusas take time to make from scratch, but it’s all totally worth it. I’ve been coming here since moving to the neighborhood and regularly I’ll get a couple of bean&cheese pupusas for a satisfying meal under $ 5, but I’ve been venturing out beyond pupusaland and thought it was finally time for a review.
The sopa de mariscos is mandatory for any seafood lover because it is packed with a ridiculous amount of seafood. Half a crab, a handful of mussels & clams, and a couple shrimp, squid, and large creamy scallops… it’s amazing and under $ 10. All the soups come with thick tortillas, pickled veg, jalapeño and lemon to create a broth to your liking… and the broth is
.good. Get it with crema for an extra 50c and added unctuousness. The sopa de res is very hearty despite it not looking like much. The meat is so tender and fun to eat off the bone, and the broth is thick and oily– exactly what you would want the morning after a night out.
The quesadilla is large, all of the pupusas are good, the tacos are tasty… the only weird thing is the enchilada. My friend got a chicken enchilada, thinking it would be the traditional type, but what he got was more like a thick fried sope topped with tons of pico, chicken, crema, avocado, and cheese… it was more like a tostada, but served cold. It was good, just not expected.

This place was great. Had the following pupusas: cheese, bean/​cheese, and revueltas. The revueltas weren’t great but the cheese and bean/​frijoles were amazing. Be prepared to wait for your food though. Service was great as well.

You can NOT and I mean NOT go wrong with pupusas from Ercilia’s. There are a few good spots for these Salvadorian nuggets (and by nuggets I mean amazing cheese or meat-​filled corn based thick tortillas) and I have tried them all. Well, maybe not all of them. But of the many I have had, Ercilia’s is hands down the best.
Like many other reviewers have said, they take their time. And that is made only worse when you go back for your 5^th or 10^th visit because your mouth just can’t seem to wait to stuff itself full of these things. But the wait is worth it. So venture over and try them out.
Oh, and definitely bring a friend that is somewhat versed in Spanish, it’ll make your experience a little easier.

All be very careful in the Ercilia’s Restaurant are selling food and come with cockroaches is a disgust. I got a cockroach in my food on November 4, 2014 instant I saw the cockroach in my food started to vomit so be very careful that place is crap.
Todos tenga mucho cuidado en el Restaurante Ercilia’s estan vendiendo la comida con cucarachas que asco a mi me dieron una cucaracha en mi comida el 4 de Noviembre del 2014 al instante que vi la cucaracha en mi comida comence a vomitar asi que tengan cuidado en ese lugar que es porqueria.

Oh man, this place is awesome. I’ve been living in Mt Pleasant for over 4 years, and I can’t believe I’ve never been to this place. From the outside, it looks sketchy as shit, so that’s probably why I had never been.
I traveled a few times this year to the Caribbean, where I probably ate a truckload of fried fish. I was craving good fish fry, so I searched for ‘fried fish” on Unilocal.Weirdly, this is one of the places listed and it turned out to be in my neighborhood, so I went to check it out.
I ordered the fish of course, which was whole tilapia deep fried. It came with rice and refried beans, salad (or maybe it was cabbage/​slaw), and 2 corn tortillas. It was a lot of food, and it was only $ 9.50 with tax, which I got to go.
Anyways, the fish was pretty tasty, and the salad was fresh. It tasted similar to stuff I’ve eaten in Provo (Turks & Caicos) and Cartagena, but it would have been better served with chili-​infused vinegar. No big deal, I had some at home.
As others have pointed out — the refried beans are really good. I didn’t eat the rice — keto diet — but I annihilated the beans. I originally planned on having a small taste … which devolved into me scraping the bits that had fallen into the bag. Not. Ashamed. That stuff is really yummy, and I’m not exactly a fan of beans.
Anyways, definitely go. Everyone says the pupusas are good. The lady at the counter said the carne asado is the best thing on the menu, and she looked Salvadoran so it’s probably legit. Service is great, and you can’t beat the price. (The place has no ambiance though — so get your food to go).
Oh and be prepared to wait. Even when I order early, the food still takes forever.

Very cheap! And they take credit/​debit cards, hurray!
Menu is in Spanish so bring your translating skills/​friends/​apps if you don’t want to ask the cashier what everything means. Definitely get beans and crema on the side. The plantains were too sweet for my taste. Horchata was a perfectly cinammony nutmeg blend, perfect sweetness.
Minus 1 star for no cerveza! (beeeeer)

Ercilia’s is a casual, no-​frills Salvadoran restaurant. At lunch on a rainy Saturday in January, the place was nearly full.
Don’t let incomplete Spanish language skills keep you away. We ordered in Spanish, but the cashier responded in English. The order numbers were called in Spanish though, so I’d recommend being able to count to 100 at a minimum. Consistent with other reviewers, it took about 15 minutes for the food to be prepared, but it was well worth it.
I tried the pupusas de camarones, pupusas revueltas, a vegetarian taco, and a lengua taco. All of the food tasted fresh and nothing was too oily. Of the papusas, the papusas revueltas were my favorite because they had more flavor than the papusas de camarones. Between the tacos, although the lengua taco was well-​spiced, the vegetarian taco stood out more with its interesting mix of textures and flavors.

I can’t believe I’ve lived in Columbia Heights for the past three years, and hadn’t visited this place until today!
The pupusas, particularly the chicharrones y queso ones, are tasty, hearty, toasted, and delicious, without being oily. The cabbage and sauce they are served with are very fresh. The camarones pupusas had perfectly melted, stringy cheese but lacked salt.
Both the veggie and lengua tacos are perfectly seasoned, topped with fresh avocado. The lengua texture was a little tougher than I’m used to, more meaty. The tacos themselves seem to be masa based, like a thinner pupusa.
The restaurant seems quite clean. You order at the counter before finding a table. While Spanish seems to be the dominant language, and I ordered (poorly) in Spanish, the lady taking our order responded in English and seemed friendly.
I’ll definitely be coming back!

I can only comment on the MUY DELICIOSA papusas I had at Ercilia’s.
D.C. has no shortage of Salvadorian restaurants, but unfortunately I’ve been disappointed by nearly all of them. Ercilia’s dishes out the best papusas I’ve had in D.C. and for a price less, too! A cheese and bean will set you back $ 1.75, while a queso y loroc — my personal favorite — will ring in at $ 2.
Their sauce and cabbage is insanely fresh and they’re generous with the amount they give you.
The only downfall is the wait … I waited nearly twenty minutes for two papusas, which in my opinion, attests to the freshness of their product and the popularity. If you’re in a rush, definitely call ahead or try and drop-​in during «off-​peak» hours.
My new favorite papusa spot in la capital !