El Sunzal Restaurant — Restaurant in Austin

Nobody who works here seems to care about anything. Service was lackluster and slow, food was coarse, not prepared properly, overcooked, and dumped on plates. Did not feel welcome, but then staff rarely smiled.

Food was nasty and inauthentic compared to other central american restaurants at which I've dined. Expected the oysters in a seafood soup to be out of shell and shrimp to have head and tail removed. Since when is southern fried chicken part of ANY central or south american dish...putting a salvadoran tomato sauce over the top of yesterday's (last week?) fried, breaded chicken pieces (with bones) not convincing or tasty. All three of us dining felt like we were eating leftovers.

Entire place is dreary, dirty, and dusty. Bathrooms are filthy...the alley is cleaner.

Go to the Colombian restaurant around the corner on E. 7th for a...

Welcoming. Unpretentious. Authentic. As a Salvadoran myself, I had my concerns about going to El Sunzal, a Salvadoran restaurant located in a predominantly Mexican part of Austin. Would the menu be less authentically guanaco? More tex-mex? Would the pupusas be greasy, filled with beef, or some way americanized?

While there is a part of the menu that is of tacos and quesadillas and the like, the place lives up to the expectation that it will be como un rincóncito Salvadoreño. So, yes, expect to SPEAK Spanish. Duh. But also expect to eat the meal any Salvadoran imagines as "comfort food:" pupusas con loroco, platanos maduros con lado de crema, pollo encebollado.

They have suprema and pilsener and colashanpan!

One star less than perfect for the Mexican portion of the menu. Also the pupusas could have come with slightly...

It was recommended to us that we try the Pupusas from here, having tried them at other locations and not being impressed. They were really good here. I would recommend them totally and they're only $2 apiece. They were so good that I ordered another one and I'm now curious about the rest of the menu.

The downside was that it wasn't busy and it took longer than expected, like 15, 20 minutes to get our food and they were just Pupusas, at least on this experience, but it's worth it if you have the time, if we were in a hurry on this particular outing that would have been a major disappointment.

We will be back. Looking forward to trying...