xolotl_tj - 7-26-2013 at 02:42 PM
This is a small place, just six tables, on the west side of Juárez between Banamex and Bancomer. It hasn't been open very long. "We had to put some
Mexican dishes on the menu because nobody here knows what Peruvian or Salvadoran food is like", says the Peruvian husband. So the place displays the
flags (banderas) of Peru, El Salvador, and Mexico.
Thanks to the Salvadoran wife, Banderas is also one of two restaurants in Rosarito that serves pupusas, the national dish of El Salvador. It turns out
that Rosarito is home to a double-ex-pat community of Central and South Americans who obtained U.S. citizenship in Los Angeles and Orange counties
before heading south again, bypassing Tijuana. Rosarito has a third pupusería in the works, along with an Ecuadorean lunch-truck and an Argentine
fondita -- and they all would rather speak English than Spanish.
So in case you were wondering, pupusas are a bit like gorditas except lighter and larger. They can be filled with pork, chicken, cheese, black beans,
shrimp, or the petals of a flower called loroco and they're served with a cole slaw made with oregano and dried chile. Banderas serves pupusas that
are as good as the best ones you can find in the Salvadoran district of Los Angeles.
Peruvian food is more complicated; have the owner tell you about it. There is an indigenous base of things like potatoes and peanuts, there are
Spanish colonial dishes similar to Cuba and Puerto Rico, and there is a strong Cantonese influence from the Chinese who have been immigrating to the
Peruvian coast since the nineteenth century.
This couple does a respectable job offering unknown food in a "tacos varios" culture, but they're fighting an uphill battle. They need all the support
they can get. The other pupusería has stayed afloat for two years because its owner moonlights as a waiter at Chez Philippe.
Their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/BanderasRestaurant