Oh, how I love pupusas: The creaminess of cheese and masa, with tidbits of chicken if I’m lucky. A fine reason to seek out eateries that focus on food from El Salvador. Not quite as well-known as Mexican food, Salvadoran cuisine tends towards the mild.
The Salvadoran version of horchata is the next-most-important thing. I still don’t think I’ve got the recipe quite right, so that’s another item I always order at Salvadoran restaurants.
My favorites (best listed first) are a tie between Vicky’s and Sabor. My standard order is chicken (with cheese), beans (with cheese), loroco (with cheese) or even zucchini (with cheese). Curtido (pickled cabbage slaw, sometimes with chile, carrots, oregano and/or epazote) and (non-spicy) tomato sauce accompany the pupusas. (I have yet to find a tomato-sauce-for-pupusas that I enjoy. Unfortunately, they all seem bland, almost like tomato soup or sauce from a can.)
What are your favorite (or not-so-favorite) pupuserías? Especially those with interesting or unconventional fillings. Have any of you tried rice pupusas?
Most of these restaurants don’t have their own website, so I link to reviews from other sites as an additional resource. An important note about ordering pupusas: Be prepared to wait if you want them cooked properly. The masa is significantly thicker than in tortillas, so undercooking would result in something raw and unpleasantly starchy.
Vicky’s Salvadoran & Mexican Restaurant, San José, CA. Crisp on the outside, tender and moist on the inside. The ideal pupusas, the cook somehow manages to maintain some of the chicken sauce (marinade?) without the masa going soggy. Yelp reviews
Sabor Salvadoreño, a.k.a., the Pupusa Factory, Santa Clara, CA. Best horchata, ¡la mejor!, out of all the places mentioned here, with a nutty almost spicy goodness. Like Vicky’s, their pupusas have some the best texture and flavor combinations, perfectly cooked. Metroactive review | Yelp reviews
La Bamba, Mountain View, CA. No chicken or zucchini here, so I settle for the bean, loroco or cheese-only ones. Tasty, but somewhat greasier than Vicky’s or Sabor’s. Another reason to come here is for their alfajores, butter-cookie sandwiches filled with caramel (or dulce de leche?). Failure to obtain a sufficient quantity of alfajores could result in arguments between otherwise close friends. 
Note: I’ve had food from only their original restaurant on Old Middlefield Way; I’ve yet to try out their new place in downtown Mountain View. Yelp reviews
El Calderón, Mountain View, CA. This place is…okay. They don’t have much variety in the pupusa fillings, so I’m faced with only plain cheese, or cheese and beans, as choices. It’s not bad…just not compelling. Yelp reviews
Grumble…
Amelia’s Restaurant, Redwood City, CA. Hmm, the last time I tried their cheese pupusas, they exceeded my tolerance of grease and hunks of dripping cheese. This meant piling on more and more of the curtido, which ended up both hiding and missing the point of the pupusa. But that was over a decade ago, and friends tell me they now have ones filled with chicken and cheese. This will require further investigation and consideration, you understand. Yelp reviews
Donut Field, Mountain View, CA. It was odd to see a pupusería inside of a donut shop, but there you go. I’ve been here only once, and sadly I’m hesitant to go again. Getting bones in both of the two chicken pupusas disturbed me. Yelp reviews
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