Balompié Cafe #3
The pupusas here come off the griddle with crisp cheese edges and fresh loroco in them. Lani Conway rated the room 8.4 for The Infatuation in April 2023. Balompié is Spanish for football, and the walls are hung with the scarves.
Why go
Conway describes the pupusas arriving hot beside a curtido heavy with oregano.1 The fillings run chicharrón, loroco and cheese, and the specialty list adds shrimp, ground beef and carne asada.
Ricky Rodriguez kept the shop in The Infatuation's thirteen best pupusas eighteen months later. The edges are crispy, he writes, the interior soft, the loroco always fresh. They will make any of them vegan.2 One outlet has written about this room twice, and I haven't found a second.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the loroco pupusa, and the casamiento and plantains with it. Conway calls the plantains caramelized and crispy.1
- Avoid: turning up expecting only pupusas. The specialty list runs to shrimp and carne asada.
What locals & experts say
- Lani Conway, The Infatuation, April 2023, 8.4:
Grab a seat by the window and you'll hear the welcomed slap of pupusas coming together while you wait.
1 - Ricky Rodriguez, The Infatuation, October 2024, keeping it among the city's thirteen best: the room
is dressed fully in soccer merch, and there's occasionally a crowd gathered around the TV watching a game, but you'll likely be singularly focused on the excellent griddled corn patties.
2
Good to know
- Getting in: walk in.
- Where: 3801 Mission Street. The Infatuation files the address under Bernal Heights.
Verdict
should-visit — Walk in, eat at the window, pay in single figures.