Trying out pupusas on Nicholson Drive

I’d driven by the gone-to-seed red food truck on Nicholson Drive—the one with no hubcaps called La Salvadorena Pupuseria #2—dozens of times in the last few months, but hadn’t stopped yet.

A short distance from Voodoo Barbecue, Willy’s Chicken and Waffles and Atcha Bakery, the food truck seemed to round out what is becoming a small but interesting little food corridor on a thoroughfare connecting LSU to downtown. The other day, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I stopped, parked my car and walked over to find pupusas, (flat, pan-fried Salvadoran “dumplings”), being made by hand.

“Eight minutes,” one of the young women told me after I placed my order for a pork and cheese pupusa and a steak taco. “You can sit in your car if you want. It’s hot.”

It was hot that day, but I hung around a little while anyway, watching a few patrons stop by and order in Spanish and head to their own cars to wait it out. I watched pupusas being formed, the flat masa patties carefully filled with either pork and cheese or zucchini and cheese and cooked until crisp on the outside. Combined with the accompanying condiment curtida, it was heavenly.

Soon enough, Nicholson will host the new Water Campus and a major mixed-use housing development. A tram is likely to connect downtown to LSU via Nicholson, if Baton Rouge can secure federal funding. Magnolia Mound is set to open a new visitors center in early October, and Tin Roof, our own local brew house just off Nicholson, is expanding. With all that energy, it might become the next great food hub in Baton Rouge, in which case, quirky real McCoy eateries like this one will be an important component.