Restaurant Reviews II

I promised a second review, and here it is...

La Santaneca de la Mission, Salvadorean and Mexican food.

The wife and I had a free Saturday and we walked (WALKED!!!) from our house to the bart station...from the Marina, Chestnut to Polk, down Polk to Market for a walk of 3+ miles.

Anyway, we got to the Mission and walked around for an hour before we got really hungry. We passed some nice looking taquerias, some Peruvian places, some other Central American and South American places and finally settled on this little Salvadorean place that was busy with families and had some pleasant latin (is that the right way to say that?) music that you could hear from the sidewalk.

It was nice, loud (the children and the music) and it smelled like fried corn.
They had a Mexican Favorites page, a Salvadorean Specialties page and a page of appetizers and whole section on Papusas.
Papusas are like a stuffed, chewy corn tortilla. At La Santaneca you can get them stuffed with cheese, beans, pork or any combination of those. They're fried on the griddle and served with a pickled cabbage slaw that you're supposed to wrap with the papusa. They're really good and cheap. Most of the tables had a large plate in the center, full of papusas.

For our main entrees, the wife chose from the Mexican side and got a tostada. Sounds plain, but it was small corn tortilla, piled high with chicken, lettuce, avocado, a "Ranchero"-style sauce, served with rice and beans.
I had the Relleno con Carne, a (mild) poblano chile pepper, filled with diced pork, rice and spices, covered in an egg batter, and deep fried...it had a nice red sauce on top and came with the same rice and beans as the wife's Mexican dish did.

Both entrees were great, but the real draw here is the papusas. We were happy about our newfound discovery and planned on keeping our find to our small circle of friends.
Apparently, we're not the only ones...