La Casita Pupuseria & Cocina C.A. — Restaurant in Gaithersburg

Amazing! (Full details & Recommendations Below)

I was absolutely amazed when I discovered this place (La Casita Pupuseria & Cocina C.A). This location is a mile ahead of their competition in flavor, freshness and authenticity. I have traveled a fair bit and this wasn't just authentic it was perfect.

We often prefer Corn Pupusa to Rice Pupusa but this restaurant has opened our eyes to just how good a Rice Pupusa can be. They were hot (Temp), crispy, flavorful and fresh when delivered. The two we ordered are listed below. If you want Pupusa's GO HERE. AMAZING!

Tamal is a lovely crushed corn dish that looks like a yellowish burrito but is salty and slightly creamy and sweet. The Tamal de Elote & de Pollo at this restaurant were the best we've ever had. The left overs even tasted fine the next day which was absolutely shocking since they typically taste bad within hours!

The Horchata tasted clean, light and fresh. Horchata is a rice and cinnamon milky drink that's slightly spicy and sweet. You can often tell if its been left unattended because it gets thick and sludgy. But not there! This is easily one of the best Horchata the tristate area.

The only item we ordered we were not impressed by were the Tacos. They should just remove the Tacos from their menu and focus on the Pupusas & Tamal since they are clearly amazing with those.

All the food items came very well packaged and carefully wrapped. We were impressed they were careful not to get any tin-foil into the food. This is very important when wrapping food in tin foil ! That alone increased our rating and respect for this restaurant.

The Pupusas we were amazed with : Verano Picadillo Pupusa [Rice] Pupusa Pollo c/ Qso [Rice]

The Tamal we were amazed with : Tamal de Elote Tamal de Pollo

The Pupusa & Tamal were so good we will probably be visiting here as often as we find ourselves in the area to do so. Absolutely fantastic. This set the bar for Pupusa & Tamal...

On a warm partly cloudy Saturday evening, we decided to walk to La Casita Pupuseria & Cocina for dinner. It was nice that we had the option to sit outdoors or indoors. Our server Jeamy was friendly, attentive, and knowledgeable about the menu.

For drinks, if you like something light, fruity, and refreshing, I'd recommend their Pina Fresca Colada, LC's Rum Punch, and Sangria De Flor De Jamaica. The Pina Fresca Colada consisted of bacardi, fresh pineapple juice, and coconut milk blended with ice and garnished with a maraschino cherry. The LC's Rum Punch consisted of Captain Morgan, Bacardi, Cruz Blanca kola, and fresh juices. It was also garnished with a maraschino cherry. I liked how the drink was presented in layers. The Sangria De Flor De Jamaica consisted of hibiscus sangria garnished with mango or peach and strawberry.

For starters, we shared an order of Tacos Ticos, which consisted of three crispy fried tortillas stuffed with pulled beef topped with shredded cabbage, aderezo rojo (creamy, sweet, and tangy roasted red pepper vinaigrette), and grated queso seco.

For entrees, I'd recommend the Pollo Frito and Casado. The Pollo Frito consisted of fried and well-seasoned 1/4 chicken served with curtido blanco (coleslaw), house salad with creamy Italian dressing, and yucca fries. The yucca fries were thicker than normal. Some of the pieces could have been cooked more. The Casado consisted of seasoned chicken stewed with potatoes and carrots, served with white rice, whole seda beans, fried ripe plantain, and house salad with creamy Italian dressing. It reminded me of a meal I had when I visited Cancun and Chichen Itza.

Next time when I dine in again, I look forward to trying their pupusas, other speciality items, other cocktails (e.g., horchata), and seasonal...

I never leave reviews so me leaving this review means a lot, if I could leave a zero starts I would. I arrived with my boyfriend at 7:20, was seated in the far back corner of the outside seating, by 7:47 still no service, at about 7:55 I called a waitress over and told her we hadn't received any service yet, after placing our order which consisted of two drinks, ceviche as appitizer, two pupasas, one baleada with chicken and a carne asada with plátanos fritos and gallo pinto. I still don't know my waitresses name because she never introduced herself to us.We were told that the ceviche was unavailable and decided to get the plátanos, mind you still no drinks not even water. Our drinks came out about 8:15 and then 8:20 two pupusas came out with an apology by our waitress which consisted word for word "sorry it's full" at 8:30 my baleada came out, with cold unsalted plátano chips and just a side order of gallo pinto. Our waitress never came back to check on us so we had to call the attention of another who was more helpful I told her I wanted the check I asked to return the baleada as it was cold since we were still waiting for the rest of our food. She did take the baleada off our check but they wanted to charge us for the gallo pinto when we didn't order gallo pinto which my boyfriend took two bites of because he HAD NOTHING ELSE TO EAT what we ordered carne asada which our original waitress then came out to tell us that she had never placed the order. On top of all this not once were we offered water or a refill on our empty drinks. It's now 9:30 and we're buying dinner elsewhere after spending close to two hours there with...