Democracy is a remarkable thing. I am always shocked at how few people actually take the time to vote and show that they can appreciate how fortunate we are to live in a stable democratic country. You can say what you want about our federal government's foreign and domestic policy. You can deride the joke we have for a governor. You can even kvetch about the current state of local politics in Los Angeles. Yes, you say, we have a progressive mayor, city council, and state and federal legislative caucus, but they are kept in power by a frustrating network of back scratching and grooming. Who will push for the real progressive agenda? Where are the leaders who aren't tainted by the perfidious influence of money in politics? I won't argue with you. The struggle to rein in corporate power, end poverty and racism, bring health care to all, and restructure our nation to somewhere more just and human is far from successful as of now. But this does not mean that we should not appreciate what we have. A quick glance at the paper makes this point palpable. Look at this weekend's elections in Azerbaijan. The president of that country is so obviously abusing the democratic process to legitimize his power. It's disgusting. Yes, the same thing happens here. But yet, but yet.

Think about El Salvador. Clearly this is a country that will benefit from a stable, democratic government. U.S. intervention did the people no favors in the 1980s, but neither did totalitarian communist and right-wing leaders. Los Angeles has the second biggest concentration of Salvadoreans in the world. The first is San Salvador, the capitol. We all know the primary reason so many of them came in the 1980s. Through U.S. complicity, the country was embroiled in a brutal civil war for many years, where thousands of innocent people were massacred without mercy. Speaking of El Salvador...

I noticed the other day that a new pupusa joint had opened up under the Sunset Blvd overpass on Glendale Blvd, next to the Burger King. I was intrigued. The only other Salvadorean place I had seen in Echo Park was La Fe, which is a good restaurant. They have yummy food and nice trpical fruit smoothies that they make fresh and are reasonably priced. This new place, Pupuseria La Fogata, is closer to my pad, so even though I am satisfied with the eating experiences I have had at La Fe, I was hopeful that there would be a new place closer to me for me to get my Salvadorean food fix.

We stopped in on the way to the polling station, ready to get a little energy to vote. The restaurant is small and clean, with blue walls, new linoleum tables and dark wood chairs. There were no other customers at the time, but the waitress informed us that they have been opened two weeks and are doing well so far. The menues are simple - just one page with about eight choices. Prices range from $1.50 for pupusas to about $6.00 for a carne asada plate. We ordered pupusas, platanos, and atol de elote. To drink we ordered a horchata and a drink called ensalata, which was a mixture of several fruits in a sweet, clear liquid.

I liked the fruit drink. It was pretty sweet, but refreshing. The horchata was a little chocolatey, which would be fine, but it was too powdery for me. I've had much better. I liked that they served all the food on ceramic plates. An improvement over plastic, to be sure. Other pluses were the simple menu and presentation of the food. No frills. The atol was a nice dish. It was a little sweet for me to eat a lot of, but it was a fresh, almost custardy mix of corn in a sweet, milky broth. The slivers of vanilla bean were a nice flavor touch. I think I would have liked it more if there was a little more elote in my atol, but who am I to say?

The platanos were very pretty in a simple way. Just plantains, beans, and cream. I liked them. My friend didn't as much. He said the cream had a funny aftertaste, and I will admit that the sour salvadorean cream tastes a bit odd at first when paired with the sweet plantains, but I like the combo. They were well cooked, although I might have prefered a few more crispy bits. I like when some of the caramelized parts of the plantain get crunchy during the frying. There wasn't much of that going on with these ones.


We also each got a pupusas de chicharron, revueltas, y queso. These pupusas were neat looking, but a little too neat perhaps. I'm more used to a little more filling, especially cheese, that wants to burst out of the center and makes somewhat of a mess of the final product, where melted cheese has blown through the fragile wall of masa and then browned and hardened on the griddle. Again, the play of the crispy outer cheese with the luscious molten interior is part of what makes pupusas so compelling. Despite that, the curtido was fine as was the salsa, each served in cute matching ceramic dishes. All in all, the pupusas were passable.

The waitress was friendly although she seemed perplexed that I was taking pictures of the food, and asked if we were visiting from somewhere. I do plan on returning to try some of the other dishes, like the fried yucca and the pastelitos de carne. Considering that our meal came to just over $15, it was a very good deal. So if you think I am crass for reducing an oppressed immigrant group to providers of cultural touristic eating experiences, oh well. We may live in a democracy but I'm not running for anything.

Pupusa La Fogata
1311 N Glendal Blvd Suite A
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(213) 483-3129
http://www.pupuserialafogata.com

I don't know the hours, but you can call for takeout too. They might start doing delivery eventually, but not yet.