El Sunzal Restaurant

Went here today with the ever adventurous Kelly S. We were meeting for lunch and decided a food truck may be too hot with the June Texas heat, so went for El Sunzal. We both thoroughly enjoyed it from the chips and salsa (which is HOT) to the other items we ordered. We decided to try a number of items by sharing, and I’m glad we did. We probably could have ordered one less item, but all of this and two beers ($ 3 each) for $ 23 was great in terms of value.
Papusas — a MUST have. We went for the queso and the queso and loroco (which is an herb of some sort). Fantastic!
Tamales — we went for one pork and one chicken. Not wrapped in corn, but some sort of green leaf. Seriously great flavor — not sure I could pick my favorite and for $ 2, just order both! And they literally are the size of a burrito, so very filling.
Ground beef pie — really good flavor mix.
Fried plantains (with cream and beans) — really good. Four good sized slices of plantains — we weren’t able to finish them.
Everything came out at more/​less the same time and all was hot. We were able to nibble and catch up for awhile. Has a small parking lot and plenty of seating inside. Very authentic — Kelly S. rocked some of her Spanish skills with our waitress, which seemed most appreciated by her.

This is my new favorite restaurant in Austin. I really love this independently owned restaurant run by El Salvadorian folks and will patronize this place over one of the many latin american cuisine restaurants run by white folks any day. This type of place is becoming few and far between in our overly gentrified city of bland food.
The service was great. Although I don’t need my waitress to smile incessantly with me to feel some type of way about my food. The waitress was helpful and attentive. More important, the food was amazing. My salpicon salad plate was tasty and really good pupusas. My partner’s fried chicken with plantains was the best.

Best pupusas in Austin. You can only order pupusas, corn tamales, yuca Frita, and fried plantains.

Rarely does Unilocal do me wrong. Rarely.
Not sure what the other people ordered but our food was bad and the service was horrible. Our order took a solid 30 minutes and when it was delivered the pupusas were cool to the touch and the plates were brought out in a staggered fashion. One plate. 5 minutes later, another plate. 5 minutes later, the last plate. What the heck?
The crispy taco shells were store bought and stale. I decided to be adventurous and order salpicon. A cold, shredded beef salad (?) served with nothing with which to eat the salad. From the research I just did, I think I should have been given tortillas to make tacos? The black beans and rice that were served with the salpicon were very bland and the guacamole had hard boiled egg in it. It might be classic Salvadoran style but it did nothing for me. I barely touched the food on my plate. Ended up sharing the food the other two in my party ordered.
Our waitress barely cracked a smile.
Bill total was $ 46 and we left most of the food on the plates. Live and learn.

El Sunzal reminds me of the Salvadorian restaurants I used to go to in LA. Atmosphere is bare bones, which works, the service is nice and the food tasty.
Their seafood soup is definitely the way to go. It’s packed with shrimp, mussels, octopus, crab (don’t miss out on eating the crab meat), tilapia and more. The broth is fantastic with a crab bisque like flavor that’s warm and comforting. Their chicharron pupusas are great too. Don’t forget to put the slaw on top, plus some salsa before diving in. The plantains are good too and the refried beans that came with them had great flavor.
As far as I know, this one of only two Salvadorian restaurants in town. I have not been to the other, but I will definitely come back here.

You know it is pretty bad when they have bullet holes in the window, it is dirty, bad service and strange odor

aaaaand the quest for decent pupusas continues. i’m salvadoran, born over here, but i have had my fair share of delicious pupusas from el salvador where my family fights over which pupuseria is the best. you may say i’m a bit biased, but the cook got things wrong that are completely unacceptable for even average pupusas. this review is for all of the people that know what a good pupusa tastes like. all y’all clueless folks keep on eating whatever makes you happy. here is what happened:
1. the tortilla was not completely cooked. parts of it were still raw doughy bits. whaaaaaaat?
2. the cheese was way too stretchy. as in, it was like eating gum. i understand that pupuserias get creative sometimes with substitute cheeses, but it was sketch. my teeth couldn’t tear it apart so i literally had to pull the cheese apart with my fingers to eat bites.
3. the frijoles were runny and light colored. THE FRIJOLES WERE RUNNY AND LIGHT COLORED. refried frijoles in pupusas are supposed to be somewhat like paste. not cut with rice (who knows what else) and runny like an egg.
4. the server did not serve the obligatory sauce. i had to ask for it… when it should be standard
5. the whole thing just tasted bland and terrible.
maybe the restaurant hired different cooks since my visit in 2015. maybe not. either way, it was so bad that i’m not risking it.

Unlike others experiences, I had a great time and the service was just great. I wish I could have gotten my server’s name. Oh well, i’ll see her next time. My boyfriend and I ordered a couple of each kind of pupusa and the maracuja juice is delicious! I would advise if you aren’t used to really hot salsa to not get the chips and salsa. I really loved it though. I will keep coming back :)

First time at this place and although the food was good, the SERVICE was shit! I WILL NOT be returning this place and I recommend you don’t bother. Chances are you will leave pissed off with the level of service, or lack there of. They bring two menus for four people, take drink orders five minutes later and they give you crushed tortilla chips. Then you wait forever to get a damn refill on WATER! We sat next to bathroom and was literally going to get water from the faucet in the bathroom. Mind you, there are a total of two tables in the whole place that have customers, total of seven in the whole place. I would understand more if the place was busy and they were hustling, between tables. Which was not the case. Literally it’s like the staff doesn’t give a damn and no common sense to actually WAIT a table of customers. The food is NOT out of this world, so spend your money elsewhere and avoid shit service.

I’ve come to this place several times. Every time I get horrible service, the lady that owns the place is very disrespectful. She’s gotten my order wrong every time I’ve gone there and I’ve asked nicely to get it fixed. She answers very rudely and I don’t even get my meal again until 10 – 20 minutes later. I like this place because of the breakfast they serve but because of the horrible way they treat their customers I have just been going to go to El sol y la Luna on 6^th and red river. It’s great service and even better food.

I had beef enchiladas, they were good not the best I have ever had but they were tasty. They were filled very full with ground beef. I could not even get thru my whole plate. Great small place you would never know it was there, I just happened to see it when going to heb. I’ll be back.

This is the worsr place to come and have lunch the service is horrible the food is not that good I don’t recommend this place at all !!!

I still love this place. My favorite are the plantains, it takes a while to make but they are great. Sometimes if you get to go you should look to make sure they are cooked enough but that only happened once.

Awesome little East Austin gem. The pupusas, tamales, and plátanos were so good. I will be back.

I was kinda looking forward to some Salvadoran food. But, I was disappointed. It was a little too Crisco greasy to me. If that is what your looking for you may like it, however I did not.
The pork tamale and papusa were OK. I liked the pickled cabbage. The dinners were just OK. I have had Salvadoran food before and this was a greasy tex-​mex version. I was not impressed with the freshness of the taco meat or enchiladas. It is just too bad I was really looking forward to it.

The pupusas are fantastic! Cheesy and crispy! Delicious! The owner and staff are super friendly and the place is really clean! The beer is nice and cold! Two thumbs up!

Honestly, I was a little sad when I was leaving this place :(This is the first time I had tried El Salvadorian food and although I was super excited to come here after seeing the reviews, I was disappointed… The food here is similar to tex-​mex, and although the seasoning was okay, the texture of the meat and other factors were not.
First off, when I asked for some mild salsa, what I got tasted like some watered down marinara sauce :(The service was also kinda slow, despite there being just 2 – 3 more tables other than ours. The server was nice though! When my order came out a good 20 – 25 min later, it took me another 30 min to chew!!! The beef fajitas I got were soooo rough I literally hurt my jaw trying to chew it. It was a good workout for my jaw muscles though. I also tasted a tamale that my friend got and although it was pretty big, probably 95% was the corn meal outside and there was only a tiny bit of meat on the inside.
Overall I was disappointed because I had high hopes for this place, but perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be :(

Even though there were only 3 other tables when we ordered, the food took nearly 30m to arrive. On top of that, they messed up my friend’s order, and she had to wait until we were nearly done eating to begin her meal. All of this would have been fine if the food was exceptional, but there is nothing great about dried, overcooked meat. I ordered 3 tacos (beef fajita, chicken fajita, and pastor) and every single meat component was incredibly dry and tough, making it hard for me to chew and swallow. I tried some of my friend’s chicken tamale hoping for better results, but it was quite flavorless, and the wrapper/​outside to filling ratio was too high.
Save your money and spend it at (practically) any other restaurant in east Austin…

I love this place.
The food is always freshly made and never fails in quality.
I like the pupusas and tamales especially. Filling, cheap, and different. The tamales are banana-​leaf wrapped, making them moist and delicious.
The breakfast tacos are also excellent.
Some of the stars of the menu are the salpicon — a type of beef «salad» that has shredded beef, radish, and mint, the salvadoran guacamole with egg in it, and the tajadas — better look at the menu picture for that one!
I love the homey atmosphere!
If I were to change something, it might be to turn down the multiple tv’s but I love this place.
The salsa — watch out! It’s hot!

Second time I been here. I wondered why I never came back. The food here is so good and way affordable. $ 2 tamales. Bought 2 and forgot how much good it was. Definitely going back

Great basics like beans, fried plantains pupusas etc.
One you get to the actual entrée then it goes down hill
Portions are small and seasoning is salty.
tried a staple «yuca w/​chicharron» and it was salty and greasy (the bad kind, I love greasy food but the fat must be from the meat not the oil you cook it in)
Overall it was underwhelming

I had been searching for a place where pupusas are sold. Nice place, and of course it tastes good.

THANK GOD this place exists!
I am from Los Angeles, where pupusas are EVERYWHERE. I can’t believe such a delicious pupusa place is so close to me. I have no idea why anyone would get Tex-​Mex here, unless they don’t know what Salvadorean food is, which would be a huge disappointment.
I got a pupusa revuelta and a loroco. Also I got a corn tamale and the platanos. Everything was GREAT. The beans were a huge hit. I can’t wait to come back here.

Friendly staff. Try out your espanol! :-)
I got a variety of things for my boyfriend and I and we were not disappointed! Everything was so delightful and tasty! I especially liked the tamales.

Came for lunch the other day and had a pretty good meal. We were immediately served a basket of chips with salsa, and on first glance El Salvadorian food looked a lot like Mexican food from most of the menu and I wish I had looked it up beforehand to know to try the Pupusas, as what I got was just your standard Tex-​Mex fare with combo 2 which was a taco, enchilada, and nachos. The chips were fresh, and the salsa was homemade with pretty good heat to it and some sort of background sweetness from pineapple or something as well.
We started with some plantains as well, and while they were good, they were a touch dried out and not as sweet and juicy as homemade ones made with really ripe plantains or from what you’d get with a jamaican meal. The refried beans that came with the plantains were awesome, creamy, very richly flavored, and were probably my favorite thing there.
The taco was average, and the shell was a bit stale which is a huge pet peeve of mine for tacos. The enchilada didn’t have much filling or flavor aside from the cheese I thought, and the nachos were my favorite part of the meal and were nicely crunchy and flavorful with the melted cheese and beef. The rice that came with the combo was pretty flavorful too with some veggies cooked in with them.
If I were to go back, I’d try the pupusas, and chow down on chips and salsa with a side of the beans as those were all really good.
Service was a bit slow, but I think there was some miscommunication about the check being brought to the table, instead of you going to pay at the counter.

Amazing. Went there with a group of friends and I think we ordered one of everything, and maybe three of others. Pupusas de Loroco w/​curtido are a MUST. Tamales are delicious, same with the plantains y crema. Wash everything down with a good Salvadoran beer or some Horchata and you’re all set.