El Gallo Pinto

On Saturday, May 10, 2008 we went to El Gallo Pinto for lunch to celebrate getting our Economic Stimulus Payment. We figured we could use some of it to help stimulate the economy of our hometown. I had read about El Gallo Pinto the day before in the San Gabriel Tribune in the column titled Dining on a Budget. It said they served authentic Nicaraguan cuisine. This sounded intriguing. I’ve enjoyed every Latin American food I’ve had and I didn’t recall trying Nicaraguan food.

El Gallo Pinto is located in a strip mall on the southwest corner of Azusa Avenue and Gladstone Street in Azusa. It’s at the south end of the strip mall behind another building making it hard to find. But it’s well worth looking for it. Luckily it was open at 11 am, though we were to only ones there. It’s a small restaurant with most of the tables having one booth bench on one side and two dining chairs on the other. The sign above the front door stated that they serve both Nicaraguan and Mexican food. The server/hostess greeted us in Spanish and she spoke Spanish to us the entire time she served us after first stating she didn’t speak English. I was able to understand most of what she said and order for us. My minor in Spanish from Willamette U. came in handy. My wife said, “Wow, this place is hard core (Latin American).” We sat in a corner booth where some paintings, masks, and small sculptures of Nicaraguan art were placed on the walls and shelves. I knew the paintings were Nicaraguan because they were signed “Imaculada, Nicaragua ’96”. There were these three similar masks with different expression on them: one looked surprised, another happy, and another goofy. On the wall near us there was also a map of Nicaragua with its states or provinces in different colors.

The server gave us our menus that consisted of two pages, one with all the Nicaraguan foods and the other with all the Mexican Food. Each page had all the foods in English and Spanish. The menus also had the Nicaraguan national anthem on the back in Spanish only. We focused on the Nicaraguan foods. There was a list of meat entrees such as beef or pork brochetas, Indian beef, mincemeat, and beef tongue. Each meat entrée came with a choice of sides: gallo pinto, salad, tortillas or fried plantains. Gallo pinto, for which the restaurant is named, is the traditional Nicaraguan dish of rice and beans mixed together. There was a list of a la cart items such as Nacatamal (Nicaraguan tamale), fried plantains (served madura (ripe) or verde (green), and fried cheese. We didn’t examine the Mexican items much but we noticed there were many Mexican desserts such as Flan, bunuelos (fritters of yucca, dough, and cheese), sweet corn tamales, guirilas (sweet corn tortillas), and sopa boracha (rum cake). The desserts were priced at only $2-3 each that’s far less than most sit-down restaurants charge for desserts. My wife thought she might like to try the rum cake since one of our coworkers makes it and has offered to bring it to office functions, though she hasn’t been able to get the boss’s permission.

The server took our orders and I figured it would be a while before we got our food since the review in the paper said the food takes a while to come. But it didn’t take long for the server to bring us our a la cart items. My wife ordered the fried cheese and I ordered the fried plantains served madura. The fried cheese looked like a large slab of tofu and my wife enjoyed it. The plantains were sweet, soft, and crunchy on the edges. We were also served a small slaw salad that tasted like it had vinegar or pickle juice on it. There was also a small bowl of garlic or onions that I didn’t get a chance to try. We were less than halfway through our a la cart items when the server brought us our entrees. My wife ordered the chicken in sauce or pollo caldillo or something like that. It consisted of chicken drumsticks and other dark meat in a red sauce with green pepper, and olives. It came with a side of gallo pinto, and some fried plantains (madura). She said everything was delicious and the chicken was cooked perfectly. I had the Nacatamal or Nicaraguan tamale that was served on top of the green plantain leaves in which in had been wrapped. It was larger and wider than a Mexican tamale. Mixed in the cornmeal masa were chancho (pork), small slices of potato, rice, raisins, olives, red pepper, onion, and some red spices. It was delicious and filling but not too much food.

We asked the server what desserts they had and the server said, “flan y bunuelos.” We asked if we could have the sopa boracha and she said she would check. She came back and said we could and I ordered it for my wife. It was a white-yellow cake with a brown exterior with raisins and smothered in a rum sauce. My wife actually didn’t like the strong taste of the rum and I ate most of it. I also felt the rum taste was too strong. But the other foods we had more than made up for the dessert. While we were eating, more people came to the restaurant. One couple ordered some food take-out. A man came up and ask us if we were enjoying everything. We guessed that he might be the owner or manager of El Gallo Pinto. We paid our bill and as we left the parking lot at the strip mall was getting very crowded.

I’m glad there are some great restaurants in Azusa such as El Gallo Pinto where we can spend our Economic Stimulus payment and help the local economy.