I really thought this entry was going to be a mea culpa, and I really wish it was. I went in early for lunch like I always do and the kids were still hanging in the dining room with their dolls and action figures and coloring books so I wish I had wonderful things to say about the place. One of my guys at work was going on and on about the fried chicken at La Salvadoreña and I just kept nodding and nodding and finally decided to give the place another try. I had gone soon after they opened with really high expectations and tried the pupusos and tacos and came away with that slightly disappointed good but not great assessment. Same today. The twice cooked fried chicken was good and I enjoyed it but I would still choose at least three other places first to go to for fried chicken. The fresh tortillas and the little different twists on rice, beans, and pico were nice, but not overwhelmingly so. And I hate damning with faint praise, but the place just didn’t rock me. It rocked the guy I work with and his wife–she loved the pupusos–so maybe this is a mea culpa post after all. I don’t know everything and I am often wrong–just like the rest of us. If you don’t want to own that, just take a minute to consider your entire dating history. Thought so. We can hit a place on the wrong day for them, or the wrong day for us. We can pick the wrong dish to try. We can have a bad encounter with a server. I remember bringing a date to Gino’s once. We were dressed a little down, jeans and sweaters, but my wallet was stuffed with cash. Our server stopped in the middle of taking our order to answer a question from an older woman in a fur coat and stayed at their table instead of turning back to us. We got up, I threw a twenty on the table and didn’t return to Gino’s for ten years. I was wrong to over react that much (five years should have been sufficient) but that just goes to show how much goes into the restaurant experience. Give La Salvadoreña a try if you want, but try as I might, I can’t recommend it very highly.
