Balompié Cafe

http://balompiecafe.com/

(There is no correlation between today's EweToob link and either Balompié[1a], Fútbol[1b], or Soccer[1c]. I just couldn't think of any good songs that were either Soccer-related ~ Really? You wanted to listen to another rendition of Gerry and the Pacemakers "You'll Never Walk Alone"? ~ or had anything to do with El Salvador.)


I had desayuno this morning at Balompié Cafe; they are located on the corner of 18th and Capp Streets over in the Mission. Balompié Cafe has been in business since 1987, and they will be celebrating their 25th Anniversary this year on Día de los Muertos (while that is actually a Mexican holiday, I don't know what they call Hallowe'en locally in El Salvador). There are three locations: two in San Francisco (both in the Mission) and one in El Salvador (in the city of Metapan).

Balompié Cafe is mainly a Salvadoran pupusas[2] joint and Balompié/Fútbol/Soccer fan hang-out. This is probably one of the best places in San Francisco to get pupusas. They offer several varieties of pupusas, including seven (siete, 7!) different vegetarian versions even. Balompié Cafe has several large flat-screen TeeVees with Balompié/Fútbol/Soccer games always going. Most everyone sits at the long table in the middle of the restaurant which has seating for twenty or more (which is really just five tables of four lined up) and have good views of two of the TeeVees. There was a match on this morning at 8:30am when I got there; however, I am not quite sure which teams were playing ~ with all of the ads and crap on players' jerseys now-a-days, it may very well have been the Barcelona Fiats vs. the London Fuller's Prides, for all I could tell. Who was winning? It looked like the blokes in the bright yellow jerseys were winning to me…

The rafters are covered with Balompié/Fútbol/Soccer scarves; from many countries, different teams, and even both types of "Football".

I had thought about ordering some pupusas with breakfast, but knew that they have a minimum order of two pupusas ~ you can mix and match any type you like, but it has to be two total ~ and that would have been way too much food to eat for me with an egg dish. I suppose I probably could have paired those with a simple breakfast of Plátanos, frijoles, queso, crema (fried plantains, beans, cheese, and sour cream). I ended up ordering Huevos con loroco[3] ~ eggs with loroco, a native Salvadoran vegetable, rice, and beans; served with two homemade corn tortillas. I also had a cuppa house coffee. (I made this into café el mexicano ~ with two sugars and lots of cream/leche. I have never been to El Salvador, so I don't know how they drink their coffee.)

This was a decent enough scrambled egg dish; I liked the unique flavour of the loroco in the dish. I do like nopalitos in a scramble/omelette better, though. The corn tortillas were excellent: very thick and hot off the griddle (which is to be expected, as a place that specializes in pupusas will usually have fresh corn tortillas, too). The coffee ended up being no charge with the meal. I tried pointing out to my server that they didn't charge me for the coffee; I am not sure if something was lost in the translation, as she kept pointing to the "Tax" part of the bill. Maybe it was just easier to comp me the coffee than to ring it up again. So, what is the flavour of loroco? It's kinda similar to spinach, but not quite; something is also lost in translation with the flavours.

Like most Mexican restaurants in the Mission, Balompié Cafe has for condimentary supplementation the ubiquitous Tapatío® and their own homemade salsa. I skipped the bottled stuff and generously used a lot of the homemade salsa all over the eggs and rice and beans; it was pretty tasty, but really only Gringo[4] hot.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:  Huevos con loroco ~ 6.0; Papusas (which I have had a few times in the past and am rating from memory) ~ 7.5


[1] Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer del día, número uno:

a. "Balompié" in Spanish is another name for what 'mericans refer to as "Soccer".

b. "Fútbol" in Spanish is also another name for what 'mericans refer to as "Soccer". This one is easy enough to translate, as it comes from two English word roots "Fu" (meaning "Don't even think o' steppin' on me shoes, ya fargin' bastage!") and "Tbol" (meaning "That ball on a pole that no one ever knew how to play with in the schoolyard.").

c. The 'merican term "Soccer" (this really isn't a "stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer", more of a "stupid, useless cultural differentiation") comes from a shortened form of "(As)soc(iation Football)" plus "-er". This was originally 19th Century British university slang and was called "socca", and later "socker".

[2] Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-culinaristic pointer del día, número dos:
 
"Pupusas" are a traditional Salvadoran dish made of a thick, handmade corn tortilla. The name comes from the Spanish word for the Pipil word "pupusaw".

By the way, the correct term for a place that specializes in pupusas is called a "pupuseria", much like a place that mainly serves tacos is called a "taqueria", and a place that mainly serves diet foods is called a "dieria"*.

*(Okay, I made that last one up, but it may even be true for all I know. I was just seeing who *cough-Cassy-cough* really reads these stupid, useless pointers of mine.)

[3] Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-horticultural pointer del día, número tres:

"Loroco" is an herbaceous vine with edible green flowers, which is indigenous to El Salvador. Unfortunately, I really can't find any word origin of "loroco" on any on-line searches. Perhaps, it was just an old Spanish word meaning "herbaceous vine with edible green flowers".

[4] Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer del día, número cuatro:

Most people know that the word "Gringo" is a Spanish and Portuguese slang word used to denote foreigners (big secret there). However, not many people know that it is probably an alteration of the Spanish word "griego" meaning "Greek". Much like we have the expression "It's all Greek to me."**, the Spanish have an expression "Hablar en gringo." which means much the same.

**(Also a common phrase heard throughout the Y*nkees locker-room.)