El Rinconcito Chapin — Restaurant in Cleveland

I'm so happy I stumbled across this beautiful restaurant. I'm always in the mood to find good Latin food and I may have found some here.

The staff was super friendly and helpful. The food tasted amazing even though the dessert was a waste.

Garnachas: the best thing I have put in my mouth in a long time. Homemade crispy corn tortillas topped with beef, onions, cheese and some pickled slaw. The beef was moist, tender and flavorful. The slaw was light and uplifted the whole dish. I, personally, would have liked a little more cheese to offset the flavors but it still tasted amazing.

Pupusas: basically what got me to stop. I've been looking for good pupusas for a while now and these were ok. Nice thick flour shell but the stuffing left me a little lacking. Although everything on the inside tasted great there just wasn't enough to offset the flavor of the corn shell. Because it was so thick it was a bit dry and crumbly. The loroco was good, although you couldn't taste a lot of it. Better I guess for non natives that may not care for the flavor. The revuelta was good but overall bean. Not a lot of meat in it which made me just want to purchase a bean and cheese one next time.

Trae Leches: this is where everything went downhill for me. As a Puerto Rican I'm always down for a good tres leches cake and this was NOT it! Even upon first getting it I had my doubts. The cake looked dry, thick and the sauce looked runny and thin. Upon tasting it, I found my initial observations were correct. The cake was super dense and extremely dry. The sauce tasted like chocolate milk and had only absorbed to the bottom third of the cake (probably to it being so runny and not being able to hold). Also, traditionally in PR you get a homemade almost marshmallowy topping for our cakes so to get canned whipped topping and chocolate sauce was disappointing. Ive seen pictures of the cake from others on Yelp and it looks much better than this so I'm hoping this was just a fluke day or I got the last piece at the end of a dish/day.

Whatever the orange sauce that came with both dishes was won me over. Could have used just a touch more salt but it was great and I ate both containers of it. Hot sauce was good too. Too smoky for my taste but it had good heat.

Overall, it's a great local shop to visit and I will try to go again to try some other things on the menu. To tell you the truth, the Garnachas alone are worth...

Didn’t expect much when we drove up- honestly thought it was closed til I saw the open sign lit up. Once we got inside, it was clean- and smelled clean, someone just Fabuloso’d the place, but wasn’t overwhelming.

Started with the sampler to start. Nothing was bad, but nothing stood out IMO either. It was a little small for the price, but you got to try a variety of things which was nice. My dad ordered the enchiladas- not at all what we expected being more familiar with Mexican style rolled tortillas. These were fried open faced tortillas topping with carnitas and a really good Guatemalan slaw. It didn’t have as much meat as we would have liked, but the slaw was generous and delicious- it had pickled cabbage, beets, carrots, and onions. Wasn’t expecting beets, but added a nice touch. I got the seared flank steak. It was nicely cooked and the guac and green onions were nice. The rice and beans were bland, but ordered some extra salsa and made them pretty good. Also added on a chorizo taco, and was a solid taco with a really good salsa verde on double tortillas- street style of course. My girlfriend ordered the ejotes dish (don’t remember the full name)- it was battered and fried green beans that she really enjoyed and said they were traditional (having spent months in Guatemala). She said the same thing about the rice and beans as I did, but did the same with some salsa.

The cubano was the stand out of the meal- it was perfect. Pork was tender, ham was the right amount and tasty, with a good Swiss cheese and mustard and pickle. The bread was very far from traditional, and I’ve eaten a ton of Cubans over the years having spent many years in Florida, but the bread was perfect for the sandwich all the same.

The restaurant itself is nothing fancy, but doesn’t need to be, and the parking lot could use a little love, but nothing that would keep me from coming back here.

Not a perfect experience, but still 5 stars as I have to root for the small businesses that try so hard and do so many things right- give it a try and...

El Rinconcito had been recommended to us as a quaint, family-run restaurant serving delicious and authentic food. After dining here I can confirm that all of those things are true. First, the food: if you order nothing else, get the pupusas - they are hearty and flavorful and all around outstanding. I could eat those pupusas all day long; by themselves they made this a 5/5 dining experience. The other must-haves are the black beans (the best I’ve had in Cleveland) and the ejotes empanizados (the cheese was savory and pungent, and the creamy and tangy and spicy elements of the dish harmonized well). Everything else was... fine. The vegan empanadas were surprisingly sweet and flavorful, though the cabbage slaw was bland and the tomato salsa was too thin and watery for my tastes. The yucca fries were unremarkable, and while the mixed grill had good flavors, it was in desperate need of a sauce (also some of the meats were overcooked). It should also be noted that since prices are very reasonable, don't hesitate to order a la carte.

The restuarant interior was clean and charming, and the staff were super friendly and attentive. I felt bad because we came in right before closing time and were the only patrons in the restaurant, but we still received...