In a stretch of Culver City on Washington, there is an interesting little building that always seems to be busy. It is both a nightclub and a Salvadoran restaurant and it is called El Baron. One night we decided to pick up some dinner from that odd little place to see what they had to offer. The menu has an interesting mix of Mexican and Salvadoran fare, but I feel like I can get good Mexican food all over LA and decided to go the Salvadoran route.
I found some interesting combos, which may or may not have been breakfast, but looked really good to me. Of these, the best-looking was El Peperecho. This is not to be confused with La Peperecha, which while seemingly only the feminine version of El Peperecho, happened to have a good amount of differences. This masculine dish consisted of grilled beef, rice, beans, Salvadoran sausage, avocado, cheese, two eggs and sour cream, all for nine bucks. What a deliciously unvegan mix that needed no changes. On top of this, I decided to get their loroco flower and cheese pupusa. One would think that the loroco flower was a misspelling of flour. After all, this menu was full of typos. But in fact it is actually an edible flower and I looked forward to consuming it.
We picked up the food at the nightclub/restaurant, which once again had people hanging out outside and looked busy. When I went in, though, the place was pretty empty. It was full of chairs and tables that could be easily moved for dancing and I figured it would be packed later. I grabbed the food, took it back to my friend’s and opened it up. My box was full of my unvegan delights and they were all separated out. This was great, because I could choose just what kind of food I wanted in each forkful. The sausage had a pretty tough casing and was moderately tasty. The beef was pretty good and since I wasn’t exactly expecting a steak, it was definitely worth it. The rest of the components of El Peperecho were also good. Nothing in the combo was amazing, but it also didn’t disappoint.
The best part of the meal was the pupusa. Although some cheese had leaked out in the cooking, the thing was not overfilled with it. The loroco flower was definitely an interesting taste. I’ve definitely never had anything like it in either texture or flavor, but I liked it. The pupusa was nicely balanced and was well-worth the $2 it cost me.
My meal at El Baron was a great deal. The food didn’t wow me, but it was certainly worth the price. And hey, how many opportunities do you get to grab a meal at a Salvadoran nightclub?
