[Mountain View] Kabobs & Pupuseria- Salvadoreño meets Middle Eastern

Kabobs & Pupuseria is in the same strip mall as Napoletana Pizzeria and Cost Plus. A few years ago I think the pupuseria changed hands and was transformed into the current form of Kabobs & Pupuseria. Not actually fusion but its a weird combination. I ate there once a year ago on the kabob side of things but didn’t find it distinctive enough to post. Someone with knowledge of Salvadorian food suggested this place when I asked nearby places to get pupusas, so last week we went and tried the Salvadorean side of food when there was an hour wait at Napoletana.

It turns out I liked their Salvadorian tamale more than their pupusas. The chicken and corn tamale was more successful than Redwood City’s Zipotes. Wrapped in banana leaf, the tamale has good fragrance and taste.

The cheese and loroco pupusa was pretty nice and was better than the pork and cheese. The queso leaked a bit from the loroco pupusa though the cheese griddled wasn’t bad. I liked Pupuseria Nineth’s better, than Zipotes’, than the loroco one here. Happy to eat again, though. Don’t remember much about the curtido or salsa roja, good or bad.

We actually ordered a chicken thigh kabob plate but our daughter so thoroughly enjoyed it that she polished off the entire plate on her own.

The person running the register is Indian. I wonder if that has to do with the sopa de India item on the menu. Most of the customers seemed to be Latinos who came for the Salvadorean side of the menu.

2 Likes

The “Sopa de India” is probably the Salvadoran “Sopa de gallina india” which is made from a range-fed chicken. I believe the “India” refers to Amerindians, since they raised chickens in open nature.

Now you got me interested in trying that sopa. Next time I am there, I will ask what that is.

It is indeed the Salvadoran soup you mentioned with free range chicken. The chicken was fine. The soup tasted more like celery than any other flavors.

Pupusas are no more. The windows are all papered up. Next up is Caspian Cuisine. We’ll have to see which cuisine around the Caspian Sea it is.

1 Like