Mi Sabor Latino — Restaurant in East Rutherford

Do we really need another Chipotle or Taco Bell in the area? With a great independent local restaurant like Mi Sabor Latino, there’s no need for that boring chain food. My wife and I managed to escape from the kids and get out for a date night. After a relaxing couples massage, we decided to go grab some birria tacos. I saw some recent reviews online for Mi Sabor Latino and make a bookmark of the location to try. Be prepared for a tiny restaurant when you arrive. There’s no sign on the outside but it’s a cute little establishment on a corner in East Rutherford. Ample free street parking is available. Bench-style seating for about six or eight people is all they have but most of the orders seem to be takeout or Uber delivery. Don’t expect the menu, because there is only a one page list of what they make… no prices listed. But be rest assured, the portions are overly generous and the price is extremely reasonable. We decided to have Birria nachos as an appetizer and then split an order of Birria tacos for our meal. Wish I had thought ahead to BYOB but it had not even occurred to me. After placing our order, one of the assistants dropped off a bowl of homemade/storemade (not a bagged commercial version) tortilla chips and an awesome green sauce, which was reminiscent of Peruvian aji verde sauce, but more mild. Damn, that green sauce was like crack for us. Just could not stop eating it. So much so that I asked him to pack me a to go container to bring home so that our kids could try it. The food arrived after an approx.10 minute wait and boy was it worth it. Check out the attached pictures to share the details. Sorry the chip bowl is mostly empty and there’s a couple bites out of our meals. We could not help but dive right in! Check out birria nacho plate picture – tons of meat, fresh, avocados, Cojito cheese…. YUM, Another customer stopped in to place a takeout order and ordered some mango smoothies. The owner made some extra and dropped them off on our table as complementary desserts. It’s that kind of “above and beyond” effort made by this establishment that will ensure that we are going to be returning customers. We will definitely be back to this restaurant and will bring a few friends and/or the kids with us. Will remember to bring our own cerveza or margaritas! The gentleman doing the cooking was the owner, was jovial, extremely friendly, and just a generally nice person. No language barriers here and he made us gringos feel right at home. Even after finishing our meals, we spent a good, 20 minutes at the counter, chatting with the owner as he was preparing other takeout orders. He’s a hard-working, family man who invested his savings in this location to bring good food to the neighborhood. It’s his passion. Feel good about spending your hard-earned dollars at this establishment and let’s keep him in business. He needs us and we need him! Let’s all partner for...

I went to Mi Sabor Latino yesterday as my brother has gone in the past and said the pupusas had to be in orders of 3 which I found it odd but decided to give it a try because they had many flavors of pupusas to choose from which I thought I could mix and match as long as the order had 3 pupusas. It's a small restaurant but I got good vibes when I walked in until I went to order. I looked at the menu and the waitress started to take down my order and when I mentioned I wanted 2 birria pupusas and 1 shrimp pupusa she quickly told me I can only get shrimp pupusas if I order in 3's that it couldn't be just 1. Again I found it odd because if you look up their menu in Google it says 3 for $11 and showed the flavors below to choose from. So I put it my order of 3 shrimp and then I did 2 Birria and 1 Revuelta. When she rang me up the screen said 12.99 birria pupusas and 15.99 shrimp pupusas. The ISSUE was not that I dont have money to pay but their pricing is all over the place and I was CONFUSED. Online it said 3 for $11 and when I asked before ordering she told me they were 3 for $12 which again was ok because money was not the issue for me but when I questioned the pricing because one order said $12.99 and the other $15.99 she quickly snapped and called the owner and told him in spanish that there was a customer who was "complaining about pricing". She didnt even let the owner speak and I just told her to charge me cause she clearly wasnt understanding me. When she proceeded to charge me, she sees my brother and asks if thats my brother. I told her yes and she said well he seems like a calm person in a sarcastic tone. So me being a hot headed salvadorean snapped and told her oh yea he is BUT IM NOT. She quickly gave me my card and I left her NO TIP because I will not TIP someone for being rude. Even told me I was the first person to complain.I literally left in disbelief the tongue this little woman had. All I wanted was clarity of pricing its weird that shrimp pupusas have to be a ordered as an order of 3 and you cant mix and match but you can do that with the birria ones and upcharge. EXAMPLE: 2 birria, 1 revuelta is Ok but 2 Shrimp and 1 revuelta is not ok... they all have to be shrimp. When I got home I tried the pupusas and the flavors were amazing ( birria, & revuelta) Shrimp not so much and they were cheap with sauce and Curtido. Portions for that are limited and they charge extra if you want more. Overall Pupusas were great but would I go again anytime soon?... NO I have places walking distance from my house that have better...

We had to go somewhere else in the neighborhood and were looking for a place to eat nearby. El Salvadorean? Never had it, should we try it? Why yes, we should! And so should you. Here's why:

1. What's a pupusa? It's a very delicious corn based tortilla thing with cheese or meat or both in the middle. Kind of like a sealed single serve quesadilla. And when you place your order, if you sit facing the kitchen you get to watch the very nice ladies make your pupusa fresh right in front of you. It comes with this pickled probably carrot (I forgot to ask) slaw and you must put it on the pupusa because it ups the deliciousness.
2. What's birria? Well, it's a delicious beef stew, but not like a runny stew, more like barbacoa beef with lots of delicious flavors. You should get it in a burrito or a taco or quesadilla. My quesadilla came with probably crema, hot sauce and another white sauce that sort of made me think of tzatziki. Whatever it was, it was very good on the quesadilla. I forgot to ask what it's called.
3. I'll bet you know what nachos are. But let me tell you something about nachos. We moved to Jersey from Harlem 4 years ago and in Harlem we had our nacho place across the street. They had very good nachos. And for 4 years, we have tried all of the places that have nachos anywhere near us. And all nachos fell short. So short that we would occasionally go back to Harlem to have THE nachos. Well, friends, no longer do we have to trek into Harlem and try to find parking to have nachos. We'll just go slightly north to Mi Sabor Latino, where they put that not tzatziki sauce on the nachos and it really...