Cuzcatlan Restaurant

This is a true Unilocal review tonight. My daughter and I arrived at 730pm trying out this place that everyone was raging about. There were medium size family came in before we did, probably ordered 6 items on the menu. We only placed 2 order… sat down then came another family came in 5 min after us. The big family got their food within 10 min, we got our drinks 15 min after. Waited about 25 min and still no food, not only that but here were no chips and salsa to munch on. I see food coming out but to the big family. The husband was the only person at the front serving food and ordering food while his wife in the kitchen. He told us our food are coming. I look at the phone it was 830pm and still no food. The family who came after us got their tamales plate. I saw more people came in ordering to go. I saw food coming out but not for us, it was for the second family came after us. He told us they call in their order first before they got there, but our order is being put in. Are you fking me!!! I saw them order at the counter!!! Don’t fking lied to me!!! I have never waited over an hour for shrimp tostada and Asada enchiladas!!! How hard to make that? We only have 2 people and you can’t make our first? Well too bad you just lost your customer! Get the priority right! If you can’t decide whose food cook first then business should have not been opened. Too bad I didn’t get to taste the food but I’ll never coming back!

Pupusas, pupusas, pupusas! 5 stars just for the pupusas. They are handmade. It tastes like home cooking. I have to admit the wait is long, about 20min +, but what else can you expect for great quality? Just like everyone else is saying, they are big. You are good with just 1 or 2.
I am Mexican so the horchata here is a different taste and so are the other dishes. I dont come here for that because its a pupuseria not a Mexican restaurant. If you come here for anything else you might be disappointed.

First timers today and the food was good but it was disappointing that my husband sat there watching my kids and I finish our food while waiting for his mojarra to come. Lets just say he never got to taste it cause they forgot to make it.

food was okay but found a nasty hair in my salad and in my drink! Never again, if I had the choice to not leave any stars I would but apparently I have to leave 1!

Stumbled across this little spot on accident. We ordered cheese and pork pupusas. The pupusas were very tasty, nice size. Curtido was on point and the salsa was the icing on the cake. Service was great. Took about 10 – 15 minutes to prepare, but well worth the wait. We will definitely come back.

First experience with Salvadorian food, and it was delightful! Pupusas were fantastic, fresh and full of flavor. My vegetarian friend was delighted with her squash & queso pupusa and vegetarian burrito.
The platanos plate with plantains and frijoles was super tasty — the Salvadorian crema was different than sour cream, but tasty. My Pupusa Mixta was delightful, tasty and juicy.
The service was top notch, with the guy behind the counter helping us newbies figure out what to order! He really seemed to care that our first experience with Salvadorian food was a good one! Refills on our drinks were fast, and he checked on us a couple times during our meal.
I’d happily return here again!

Food: The pupusas are good size portion with good taste. A good amount of curtido is served. The salvadorean horchata is good. This spot is a must if ur into good salvadorean food.
Service: service is mediocre. At the time of our visit, we only saw one employee who took orders, cleaned tables, gave refills and brought food out. Maybe because it was slow. Food was brought out in a timely manner. Service provided good service.
Atmosphere: if you are looking for a more traditional salvadorean feel to it, this is not the spot. It’s more modern. Music being played in the background is techno music you would hear in a café. Not good for large groups. Location is clean and spacious. Plenty of parking.

AMAZING PUPUSAS!!!
If your in town and in the mood for some pupusas this is the place to come to real traditional Salvadorian food pupusas are made fresh, worth the wait the owners are awesome people very friendly. This place is great I will definitely recommend to try!

Delicious papusa chicharon y queso! Definitely ask for some of their habanero hot sauce, totally changed my papusa game. That hot sauce made the papusa even better!

My mouth is watering as I’m daydreaming of the platano plate… OMG first you take cut a piece of platano, then dip in the Salvadoran beans and then dip in the crema and then put in your mouth! HEAVEN!!! The Salvadoran Horchata is so complex (really it is) lots of cinnamon and more earthy. The pupusas are great as described like everyone else, you won’t be sorry especially with the curtido (salvadoran slaw). I also tried yuca with chicharron and that was simple but my kids liked it. This is my new pupusa platano place for sure

The pupusas are so big and hearty! Always made fresh, they come piping hot and are delicious.
Pupusa — the most notable dish in Salvadorean cuisine — is a thick corn flour or rice flour tortilla stuffed with cheese, chicharrón (fried pork belly or pork rinds) or refried black beans.
All pupusas are $ 2.50. Choices include de Queso (cheese), Chicharron, Chicharron y Queso and Mixtas (pork, cheese and beans). Vegetarian options ($ 3 — $ 3.50) include rice, spinach and squash. Served with curtido — a lightly fermented cabbage slaw with red chilies and vinegar — just two of these pupusas make for a hearty meal.
Tacos ($ 2.25 each) include beef steak or chicken. Under their Mexican plates category. Mildly seasoned and moist but lacked the flavor and juiciness I had hoped for. The wait time was nearly 30 minutes for an order of two pupusas and two tacos during weekday dinner hours.
The Pollo Encebollado (chicken with onions), $ 8.95, is a solid dish. The chicken is stewed, very tender and topped with stewed onions, bell peppers and tomato. Not heavily seasoned, peppery with a strong essence of sweet onions. Like most dishes, comes with refried pinto beans, rice, salad and two mini pupusas. A hearty, delicious dish. The flavors are uniquely Salvadorean.
The horchata, $ 3.50, was slightly grainy, could have been sweeter and blended better. The licuado de ensalada, $ 3.50, is a much better choice. It is tangy, fruity and mostly naturally sweetened with tiny cube sized fruit chunks that is easily to chew and slurp through the straw.
The menu includes Antojitos (street foods), Platos de Mariscos (seafood plates), Desayunos (breakfast), soups, meat and chicken plates.
Not recommended if you are rushed for time during lunch. All dishes are made-​to-​order and wait time could be lengthy. There was only one person doing everything during the dinner hours — including taking orders at the counter, preparing the dishes in the kitchen and then bringing them to the tables — so expect a very long wait unless they have more help during the day.
Open everyday 8:30 am — 9:00 pm

This restaurant was in a scary location. We did not feel safe and made sure we were near the exit. For Christmas we wanted to serve tamales to our family. But they could not just be any tamales, they had to be Salvadorean tamales prepared just like their mother used to make.
I started to Unilocal Salvadorean restaurants in the local area and this is our first stop. It was a little farther than I wanted to travel just in case we chose this restaurant to have our Noche Buena catered.
Sadly there was only one girl who took our orders prepare the food and cooked it and served it she was sweet as can be but the food was rushed the feeling inside the tamales were very skimpy and on the dry side. Back to the drawing board or should I say back to Unilocal

My daughter is on Christmas break from college and wanted some pupusas. I decided to give Cuzcatlan a try. Good choice. We came in around noon and the place was empty (not a good sign in my book). The lady who took our order was genuinely friendly. Daughter ordered two pork pupusas, sans cheese. I’m not a big fan so I ordered huevos rancheros. We waited a while for the meal to be served and, in the meantime, only one other customer came in (a lady with a toddler). The wait was worth it, though… daughter thoroughly enjoyed the pupusas, which also came with pickled cabbage. And my dish was hot (can’t stand cold eggs), with the eggs cooked through, which is how I like them. The bell pepper and onions smothering the eggs were not cooked limp, but not entirely raw… just right. Beans and rice were good, and the dish was served with two homemade corn tortillas (pupusa masa). Excellent!
Only complaint has nothing to do with the food. The restroom was completely out of paper.

Lovely place to get authentic popusas, it’s a bit slow but taste like grandmas cooking. The hostess are busy but will handle all your needs in time.

We didn’t get the pupusas so maybe that’s why I was underwhelmed. The lady at the cashier had difficulty understanding us and seemed bothered that we were taking our time looking at the menu. I got the yuca con chicaron because of what other Unilocalers said, but found it to be dry, though the flavor was good. The meat was difficult to chew because of how hard it was. Don’t know if that was how it was supposed to be.
I might come back to try a pupusa as takeout. They also take kind of awhile to get the food out to you, and confusingly asked us if we wanted to pay now or later.

Completely disappointed. The polar opposed from my first experience. Called in for take out. Soggy yucca, burnt chícharon, brunt plátanos. Two half ass filled bags of curtido filled with juice instead of actual curtido for four Pupusas, I asked for an order of platanos, cream and frijoles — again skimped in any way they could. They first gave me the 2 oz container of creama and I paid for a larger size.
The Pupusas were delicious. If you stick to Pupusas and eat in the restaurant where you actually see what your getting you should be fine.
Did they change owners? Cooks? Maybe it was an off day — however, I have zero motivation to return. It’s too bad I thought I had finally found a pupuseria in Orange County, the search continue — no longer worth the drive from North Fullerton.
$ 34.78 = an order of yucca with four pieces of yucca and 4 pieces of chincharon. An order of plátanos (4 slices), ½ cup of beans and 2oz of creama (paid for more creama in cash), 4 Pupusas with about a half cup of curtido and a cola champaign.
Unfortunately this was a very over priced meal that ended up mostly in the trash.

I would give it 5 stars but it’s my first time here And I want to see the consistency they have
My experience was great, my breakfast plate was delicious, platanos are on point the plate comes with beans, eggs of your choice and cream with 2 hand made tortillas… The service was great time on preparing the food was on point. There is only 1 lady doing everything but she’s fast.
Portions are good and the taste is authentic I’ll come back and try more dishes.

Caution!!! Order at least 30 mintues before hand, these guys take forever!
Ordered: pupusas mixta, tamales, and camarones diablo.
Pupusas was delicious… except 1 out of 3 was under cooked. It was pale and white in color as opposed to a nice deep yellow/​cooked color. Great. The tamales was good, very different from a traditional Mexican tamales. The best and worst of the meal was the camarones diablo. The dish was SO amazing with this delicious diablo sauce, the beans were good, the rice was good, and the salad helped lighten up the dish. The bad part about this dish is that the shrimp was overcooked, with some shrimp the shell was peeled and some weren’t. WTF? The shrimp was tough and tiny. For $ 11-​$ 12 a plate, this was such a ripe-​off. Next time we will just stick to the apps.
My major gripe w these guys is it took forever for our food to come out, they Undercooked the pupusas, Overcooked the shrimp, all the while there was only 2 tables occupied. Dude, that’s terrible. A 35 minute wait is unacceptable. They are so lucky their food is so good.
Maybe I’ll come back when my anger has subsided.

«WHAT?!» … was pretty much my hubby and I’s reaction when we tried Cuzcatlan and realized how freakin’ good they actually were. I mean, my hubby’s family is from El Salvador and we’ve both had our fair share of different pupusas. In fact, our favorite spot in LA (Atlacatl) is THE place that we claim as having the BEST pupusas and no one so far had come in as a close second — but now, Cuzcatlan is up there and that is a big deal for us. Especially since Cuzcatlan isn’t too far away from our new place.
What we ate/​drank (between the both of us):
— 4 Pupusas (2 Queso con Loroco, 2 Revueltas)
*Queso con Loroco $ 2.50 each, Revueltas $ 3 each
— Yuca Frita con Chicharron
*$ 8.50
— Platanos Fritos con Frijoles y Crema
*$ 4.50
— Horchata
*$ 2.50
— Water
*Free
**Total Costs w/​tax: $ 28
We ate there at the restaurant, so I can’t speak on the «take out» experience. But really, our dine-​in experience was awesome.
EVERYthing was delicious. The Yuca Frita were actually super soft in the center, but very crunch/​crispy on the outside. This is really hard to achieve, because Yuca takes a really long time to soften up due to its root starches — not as easy as regular potatoes to fry up. The Platanos Fritos were actually a tad bit dry, but we’re thinking it’s because they didn’t add extra sugar for caramelization like many other restaurants do — but then the beans and crema were reeeaaally tasty. The pupusas themselves were not too doughy with the masa, and the cheese inside was very well melted. That cheese is just magical, so it’s also very challenging to achieve the right texture.
Needless to say, we’ll be back — and even plan to bring my hubby’s parents next time. Very bold, yes — but we’re confident they’ll be satisfied!

The Pupusas here are no joke. The hype is real. I tried the Pork/​Cheese/​Bean & the Pork/​Cheese with no bean & enjoyed both of them. The cabbage salad was fresh and flavorful. They were out of the hot salsa the night that I went so I was only able to try the mild one, which in my opinion was kind of plain. I also tried a Carne Asada Taco. The meat was seasoned really well & had a lot of flavor – next time I’ll try a Carne Asada Burrito.
The gentleman who took our order was the same one that served us. He was very friendly and offered suggestions. You order at the counter, seat yourself & then pay at the counter when you’re done eating. There’s about 10 tables if you choose to dine in, but a lot of people were ordering take-​out. Since everything is made fresh-​to-​order, call at least 20 – 30 minutes in advance to ensure that your food will be ready when you get there. Credit cards are accepted.