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A combination pizza place and Salvadoran restaurant may sound unusual, but for Ismael Alvarenga of El Salvador, it is the
culmination of a dream.
Ismael Alvarenga managed a Fuddruckers restaurant in San Diego for 15 years, but he always wanted his own business.In
2004, Ismael bowed out of the partnership to buy World's Best Pizza, at 358 W. El Norte Parkway in Escondido. The restaurant
had been there for 18 years when the Alvarenga took over and brought in family members to help run it.
They didn't do away with the pizza menu, but added ethnic specialties instead. "I didn't want to ignore longtime
customers, but I knew there were a lot of Salvadorans here because people talk," Ismael Alvarenga said.
On weekend evenings, Salvadoran families, and those from other Latin American countries, transform the sleepy pizza place
into a packed international dinner spot in a strip mall. They share news of their homelands, chat up neighboring tables and
get friendly with the cooks. Most of all, they eat.
They come for the fried yucca, plantains with thick sour cream, pools of seasoned beans, corn tamales with fresh Tijuana
corn shucked on the spot, mixed fruit drinks and Salvadoran beer.
Pupusas are the stars, though.
"Like hamburgers here in the United States, we have pupusas in El Salvador," said Ismael Alvarenga.
Pupusas are El Salvador's staple of grilled white cornmeal cakes stuffed with twice-cooked pork, seasoned beans, a mixture
of aged and fresh cheese or other fillings. They are topped with curtido, a tangy cabbage slaw spiced with red chilies and
vinegar.
Mexicans say the pupusas remind them of cornmeal gorditas; Argentines recall tasty arepas. Colombians come to World's
Best for the starchy yucca root of their homeland, which is served fried.
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