Restaurant y Pupuseria Guanachapin, Melrose Park

Restaurant y Pupuseria Guanachapin, Melrose Park

In Melrose Park, in a strip mall, is Restaurant y Pupuseria Guanachapin, which serves foods of “Central America,” mostly El Salvador and Guatemala.

Thanks to Amata who posted a wonderful survey of some of Melrose Park’s greater and lesser smallish places. Stopping by Sam’s, we found it closed, so went catty-corner to Guanachapin.

Most commonly associated with the cuisine of El Salvador, the pupusas here are pork, cheese, beans, nopales (cactus paddles), chicken or beef. I had one stuffed with nopales and cheese and it was just fine, though not, as Amata noted, very corn-y (not sure I’ve ever had them much cornier at Guanaco or the Maxwell Street places -- masa is mixed with flour, and the tendency may be more toward caramelized flour flavor than corn).



What really tickled me, though, was the chile relleno, a stuffed chile and also a relatively common item on Mexican menus. In many of Chicago’s Mexican restaurants, the chile (usually a milder variety, like the poblano) seems most often to be stuffed with a mozzarella- type cheese, breaded and fried. The chile relleno at Guanachapin was similarly mild, but it was stuffed with a mixture of pork and vegetables, covered with a mild tomato sauce and a fresh, farmer-type cheese. Honestly, I find the cheese-filled version of stuffed peppers a little dull and gloppy; the non-cheese stuffing I had at Guanachapin was much lighter and had more dimensions of flavors inside.



The lacy delicacy of the breading on this chile relleno suggested that it was not breaded, fried and held until ordered but rather breaded and fried to order. It had a fresh spark.

In addition to the chile relleno and pupusa, I also ordered some pastelitos (small empanadas, stuffed with pork and vegetables, and fried hard), and I quite enjoyed all of them, but the stuffed chile was, without a doubt, the best bite I had at Restaurant y Pupuseria Guanachapin.



I enjoyed Guatemalan beer, light and refreshing:



I feel this small place is deserving of its own thread because there are other items on the menu that seem worth investigation: e.g., breakfast tamal guatemalteco, rellenitos with bananas and beans, and yucca con chicharron, among others.

The place is open 10-10, and the owner/chef, Dona Blanca, tells me there’s music on weekends.

Guanachapin Restaurant
10400 Fullerton Avenue
Melrose Park IL 60614
(847) 288-0084

hey david, did they have any homemade sausages? That (and plantains with black beans and crema) tends to be my favorite orders at salvadoran spots

zim wrote:hey david, did they have any homemade sausages? That (and plantains with black beans and crema) tends to be my favorite orders at salvadoran spots

Hey zim, no I didn't, and I'm not sure they have them. They may, but looking at the take-out menu (an abbreviated version of their full menu), I don't see any sausages listed. This place is trying to cover the foods of both Guatemala and El Salvador, so maybe they're less than comprehensive in both areas.

I am interested in the tamal Guatemalteco, which is listed as a breakfast item, as well as the hilachas and gallo en chicha -- I don't believe I've ever had any of these regional specialties.

There's more to explore here.

Talk about underappreciated cuisines. This reminds me that no one ever talks about the perfectly pleasant Tinajon, hidden in plain sight smack in the middle of Roscoe Village. The long-standing Guatemalan anchor has a full bar (with Famosa) and all the greatest hits, including longaniza, frijoles colados, hilachas, tamales, etc.

You'll find there is overlap with southern Mexican, particularly Yucatecan (the tamales are similar) and Latin Caribbean (hilachas is quite like ropa vieja), which all makes geocultural sense. I have some Guatemaltecan in laws and they are great cooks.

[A quick side trip: One thing that is lost on me completely is the use of canned fruits and mayo-heavy salads for festival dishes. As in Cuba, a can of fruit cocktail was during colonial/neo-colonial times, i.e., when Dole was in charge, the height of class. (Served in a tropical paradise where mangos fall to the ground, eaten by cows.) Thus, dishes such as "pudin diplomatico" in both countries -- a dessert fit for foreign dignitaries based on canned fruit and canned milk. A similar head scratcher is fiambre a highly-composed disaster of cold sausages, hard boiled eggs, beets, often mayo, aspics, and cheap cheese reserved for the most sacred and joyous occasions. This is the last thing you might think came from a Central American country and the sort of dish best left to the Northern Europeans.]


El Tinajon
2054 W Roscoe St, Chicago IL60618 41.943232 -87.680179
(Btwn N Seeley & N Hoyne Ave)