El Buen Chapin Deli

GUATEMALA 🇬🇹

The Guatemalan offerings at this address have went through quite a transformation over the past year. After the old flower shop went out of business in early 2018, the shop eventually became somewhat of a corner store for Central Americans despite its mid-block location. It had some trinkets and a few groceries, but seemed to be mostly used for people to send remittances and otherwise back home.

Eventually a sign showed up outside with the simple offer of chuchitos, the wrapped-and-steamed masa delights very similar to Mexican-style tamales. With a crisp new Guatemalan flag in the window and no other outward facing signage, it was hard to resist coming in to check it out.

El Buen Chapin Deli is continuing the story of the Central Americanization of Sunset Park, and surpasses Karen Deli in the southern reaches of the neighborhood as the strongest presence for the country.

Even back before the new steam table opened, the shop was selling some packaged baked goods, national team jerseys, colorful tradition dresses and pants and a hodgepodge of other pantry products.

Before this year, the woman running the shop would have to leave her envios booth and open up the big Coleman cooler that had the foil-wrapped chuchitos (above, one unwrapped) sold individually. On the first attempt it was noticed that they would be gone not much after noon.

Chuchitos are still made almost daily, but now a rotating steam table is on offer and has taken command of the interior. Two tables offer four seats each and depending on when you arrive finding a seat could be difficult. Plan to make some friends at any rate, as you will probably share a table once you do sit down.

Most dishes besides soups will come with a hearty portion of rice and beans and two fluffy homemade Guatemalan-style corn tortillas for $10. On the first time coming to the steam table, the woman smiled and asked "Conoces la comida guatemalteca?" very confidently. It was nice to hear a specificity of cuisine, a sort of pride that references back to the name of the place.

On some days you might find chiles rellenos (above and below), very thin peppers stuffed with ground beef and vegetables. Each one is dipped in a flour and egg batter before frying. The dish is quite mild but they have a good green salsa available if you need it.

As mentioned, like most dishes this comes served over their very good rice and black beans. It is an enjoyable and filling dish, exactly the type of meal many other customers are looking for before or after their day of work.

The restaurant is everything you might expect and want from a workaday place. A dry erase board is out front daily with the selections available inside, but you will see everyone take a look at the offerings before deciding. The kitchen staff are happy to remove lids and offer views of each dish.

On one recent visit, a simple sopa de pollo ($10, above) was enjoyed. Filled with potatoes and chayote, the extremely large chunks of on-the-bone chicken are actually difficult to handle with the plastic silverware. By the end the tortillas came in handy to hold meats and keep juices from splashing.

A bit of a surprise in execution was the pepián de gallina ($10, below), a hen stew that is served with a really rich sauce that almost has the thickness and likeness of a mole. One of the most famous Mayan dishes still loved today is done really well here, although the bony bits of hen are almost an afterthought. Bites of the rice and pepián were the real winners.

Tablecloth.

The store still seems to do the tasks it used to, and some come in for medicines or other reasons, but now someone will have to leave the kitchen to attend to these needs in the front. The back of the shop and its daily prepared foods are clearly the focus nowadays.

The shelves seem to get more stocked with each visit, including many universal products and some Guatemalan things like Pollo Campero-branded ketchup, something every fridge needs. You will also find packaged bakery items from a famous place in Philadelphia as well as fresh baked goods in a case from a local baker. A true one stop shop.

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SUNSET PARK Brooklyn

3915 5th Avenue

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Ix Restaurant

GUATEMALA 🇬🇹

Unless you take an interest, it is hard to ascertain just what Ix is all about from the outside. In a rapidly changing neighborhood, it seems to be a hangout for many of the newer residents of the area. The menu is absolutely all over the map, with Spanish tortilla de huevo, sandwiches, kimchi soup, and plenty of breakfast options with high end coffee and tea.

But look a little closer to some of the items, especially in the soups list, and you start to see some standouts. Alternatively you could find some of these soups on the menus of a Mexican or Guatemalan restaurant, but what they share in common is their roots in centuries old Mayan kitchens. Guatemalan dishes like pepian and jocón are just the tip of the iceberg for using ingredients to this culture that spanned the lands of what is now Guatemala and southern México.

For more on this, read our article about Tierras Centro Americanas in Jamaica, Queens.

One of my favorite dishes in the entire city is the jocón at Tierras Centro Americanas (link above), so I was ecstatic to see the dish listed on a second menu finally. The version here ($13, above) comes out looking perfect, topped with crisp green beans and a deep green color from tomatillos, cilantro, and green peppers. Toasted pumpkin seeds called pepitos, garlic, and onions provide the rest of the palate. Oddly left out was the heat that is usually a big part of this dish, which I later learned from the owner was an unfortunate byproduct of his customers who for the most part do not like spicy food. Make sure to request it spicy or add some of their homemade Mayan-style hot sauce available at the counter.

Soup on another day.

And that hot sauce? It is for sale at $6.50/jar and worth every penny. The main ingredient, chile cobanero, is a small red pepper from the area near the modern city of Cobán but has been used since the Mayans were the dominant people of the region. It is combined with olive oil and just a bit of garlic and salt. Simple yet delicious, the pepper itself is earthy and very smoky. I have been putting it on all types of foods at home ever since the purchase.

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PROSPECT LEFFERTS GARDENS Brooklyn
43 Lincoln Road

Map of Eat the World NYC:

Tierras Centro Americanas

EL SALVADOR 🇸🇻
GUATEMALA 🇬🇹

Central American Independence. Photo by Sasha Maslov for The Queens Tribune.

This article originally appeared in the 13 September 2018 issue of The Queens Tribune.

When I first sampled the thick stews of Guatemala at this location almost 15 years ago, I could never have known how finding them in restaurants could be so elusive. So rare in fact that later that year on a trip through Central America, I found myself constantly hearing “Ese es un plato que solo comemos en casa” in restaurants throughout Guatemala.

“We only eat those foods at home.”

The wildly enjoyable jocón and hilachas at what then was called “La Xelajú” are almost unheard of in restaurants in the New York City area. Only one other time had I found a rendition of hilachas across the Hudson River, but this only made the yearning more fierce as it seemed no love had been put into the plate at that restaurant.

Thankfully for over 20 years the specials here at what is now Tierras Centro Americanas have stayed wonderfully steady despite one change of hands. Current owner and chef Maria Escobar took over in 2006 and employed its former chef for two years to pass down the Guatemalan recipes she was less familiar with. Hailing from El Salvador but living in New York City since the early 1980’s, Ms. Escobar decided the menu should keep its focus on an integrated cuisine that represented both countries and also catered to Hondurans in the area. This recipe for success and a commitment to quality have led to a consistency that is quite rare in restaurants. In over two dozen visits I do not remember an off day from this kitchen.

Jocón. Photo by Sasha Maslov for The Queens Tribune.

Around the corner from Hillside Avenue and hidden from the busy thoroughfare, this Jamaica mainstay is very much unhidden to its Central American regulars. Not much else has changed since those first visits besides fresh coats of white and light blue paint to represent the many flags of Central America and probably some new handicrafts for the walls. Over time what was originally $10 on the menu may have been crossed out and have $11 hand-written instead.

Primarily used for the storage of menus and drinks, the room you enter from 168th Street also has a couple chairs for waiting takeout customers and you can peek into the small kitchen and catch glimpses of the chef in action. As you take your seat in the dining room, the only access to the kitchen is audible, where during slower mid-afternoon times you can almost hear every rattle and clink of your meal being prepared.

Big hearty plates are served to couples, solo diners looking weary after long days of work, and groups of men who come in and enjoy a table full of Coronas or Cerveza Gallo, Guatemala’s biggest beer which goes by the name “Famosa” in the states. The jocón (above) comes in a large bowl accompanied like most Guatemalan dishes with thick homemade corn tortillas. The dish has its roots in Mayan culture and cuisine, still very prevalent in Guatemala more than any other place. Tomatillos have been discovered to be a very important ingredient of this ancient civilization and they have a heavy influence in the stew. In addition the wonderful green is created by adding cilantro, green peppers, and jalapeños. Toasted pumpkin seeds called pepitos, garlic, and onions provide the rest of the palate.

Salpicón. Photo by Sasha Maslov for The Queens Tribune.

Take caution with the tortillas which are not only piping hot but have a quick way of filling the belly. Put them close to your nose and enjoy the wonderful smell once they cool down, but save room for hilachas, a shredded beef stew made with a base of ripe tomatoes, and salpicón (above), a pan-Central American beef salad served cold with chopped onions, cilantro, tomatoes, and non-spicy peppers. Another typically Guatemalan dish is revolcado, which can be prepared in many ways but always involves the interior parts of the animal involved in its preparation. Here the brief English menu description is “chopped cow heart and pork in homemade brown sauce,” but without knowing the cuts could be mistaken for tender beef. In addition to these more intricate dishes, the workaday meals found on Guatemalan lunch menus daily like pepián, another meat stew with Mayan heritage, and garnachas, an appetizer similar to Mexican tostadas consisting of a fried tortilla topped with meat, onions, and tomato sauce.

Pupusas revueltas. Photo by Sasha Maslov for The Queens Tribune.

Many of the other tables you see will be Salvadoran people ordering stacks of Ms. Escobar’s excellent pupusas (above), perhaps the most recognizable symbol of that country’s cuisine but eaten by more than just Guanacos. Groups of men devouring them might ask for the lone TV to be switched over to La Liga matches, but usually a talk show or drama will be on in competition with the jukebox if someone puts on a song. At the back with the jukebox is the most prominent work in the restaurant, a handmade mural celebrating September 15th, 1821, the day El Salvador and Guatemala, along with Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica all became independent from Spain. For hundreds of years the histories and cuisines of these nations have been tied together, and often this translates in New York City into restaurants like this that can satisfy the cravings of each of these peoples.

You will still find the name “Xelajú” on the menu, an ode to the roots of the restaurant and its food. This Mayan word derived from the phrase “under ten mountains” and used to be the name of what now goes by Quetzaltenango in the highlands of Guatemala. In New York City, Tierras Centro Americanas is the fastest way to get to “Xela,” the nickname residents still use for their city.

The previous Eat the World NYC article from 14 August 2009 can be found here:
http://www.eattheworldnyc.com/2008/11/tierras-centro-americanas.html

Photo by Sasha Maslov for The Queens Tribune.

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JAMAICA Queens

87-52 168th Street

Map of Eat the World NYC:

La Chapinita Restaurante

GUATEMALA 🇬🇹

Open early, and known for its breakfasts and bakery, this Trenton eatery was well populated on the holiday Monday morning we attended. Men in groups of two had the look of hard workers getting calories for the day ahead. There is a large population of Guatemalans in Trenton, NJ, and these were just a few.

They keep it dim inside, with the blinds drawn on every small window. Most of the lighting is done by Tiffany-style lamps hanging from the ceiling, giving the place a very warm vibe despite the rest of the sparse surroundings.

In a self-service station they have coffee, tea, and both atol de elote and atol de plátano ($3 each, pictured at bottom) in large heating barrels. These drinks of milk and corn and plantain, respectively, are served hot and enjoyed in any weather.

The desayuno chapinita ($8, above) is a meatless breakfast plate consisting of scrambled eggs, beans, cheese, and a sweet plantain. Central American meals are usually not complete without avocado, and the Guatemalan-style crema is key.
Atol de elote y platano, always at the ready.

Despite only being two people and having already ordered two meals, a plate of garnachas ($6.99, above) could not be avoided. Different types of garnachas can be found in Guatemala, Belize, and southern México, but these versions are piles of shredded meat over thick crispy fried corn tortillas.

Both the breakfast and the churrasco Tikal ($14, below) were served on plates nearly two feet long. While the breakfast items had plenty of room to maneuver, the meat platter was a comically large amount of food. There are not small two top tables here at La Chapinita, and suddenly we realized why this was.

The plate is populated by carne asada, a pork chop, and two different types of sausages. Along with black beans and rice, a salad with plenty of avocados, and some fried potatoes, a meal for a small family was ready to be eaten.

Atol de elote.

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TRENTON New Jersey

804 Chambers Street

Map of Eat the World NYC:

Karen & Sharon Restaurant

GUATEMALA 🇬🇹

On a recent walk in Bergen County on the way to the well-known Latin American neighborhoods of West New York and Union City, I was surprised to find somewhat of a Guatemalan enclave in parts of Fairview, Cliffside Park, and even as far north into Palisades Park, a neighborhood known for its Korean population. Near the southern end, there was a block with three Guatemalan delis occupying real estate amongst the Korean restaurants, staking claim for an always-expanding population. Groups of Guatemalan men waited on corners for day-rate work opportunities, while the quiet residential neighborhoods in the area were full of parked cars with blue and white flags of the country on their rear view mirrors.

There was no plan to eat Guatemalan food on this day, but I obsessively walked into each deli and restaurant I found, about a dozen in total, asking for some of my favorite hard to find Guatemalan dishes. Over in Jamaica, Queens exists the wonderful Tierras Centro Americanas, the only place in the city I ever found serving hilachas and jocón, dishes first experienced in travels through the country. Since first eating there over a decade ago, I have diligently asked the chefs at Guatemalan places in New Jersey, Brooklyn, and Queens whenever I run across them, without luck.

Having asked almost ten times on this day at various locations, I walked into Karen & Sharon not expecting much, but the lady nodded her head quickly after my request. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity, an order was placed and I sat down and took a look at the rest of the menu still skeptical that it was actually going to happen.

But there on the front cover of the menu was hilachas, apparently one of their featured dishes.

Excitement levels skyrocketed, these two ladies with rhyming names had somehow made the day. I took a seat at one of the eight or so tables available and enjoyed the white and blue environment. Stripes on the wall, flowers at the table, everything had to adhere to the strict patriotic theme inside.

The word "hilachas" means "rags" in English, and the dish somewhat resembles the more popular Cuban dish ropa vieja (old clothes). Both are prepared by shredding thin strips of beef. Various vegetables are combined with the strips of meat, which are slathered here with a red tomato and tomatillo sauce. Sometimes the dish reads more as a stew and is served in a bowl.

The version Karen & Sharon serve ($9, above) is potato-free, accompanied by a mound of white rice for starch, a basket of fresh tortillas, and a small vessel of black beans.

The cuts of beef are a bit chewy and tough, not as tender and of the quality at Tierras unfortunately, but still very satisfying.

Other exciting menu items not seen in a standard Guatemalan steam table deli are salpicon, a fresh salad of beef, mint, lime, tomato, pepper, and onion (amongst other ingredients), and subanik, a Mayan meat and chili pepper stew served during ceremonies.

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FAIRVIEW New Jersey

306 Anderson Avenue

Restaurant & Cafeteria Centro America

EL SALVADOR
GUATEMALA
HONDURAS

The three most represented Central American countries in New York City and New Jersey are the three countries represented by the menu of this restaurant in Jamaica, Queens. Despite their logo encompassing countries from Belize to Panamá, only the food of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras makes the cut.

The first hints are the two flags on the windows with plates of food superimposed. On the right is the Guatemalan flag, with its lighter blue and vertical stripes, while the dark blue horizontal stripes of El Salvador and Honduras are to the left. In the front of the shop, there are pastries, tamales, and hot drinks like atol de elote ($2.50, not pictured), a traditional sweet corn beverage.

I asked for my hard to find favorite Guatemalan dishes but to no avail. I ended up with the pollo en crema ($10 (although the menu said $9), above), a dish I had never tried. Grilled chunks of chicken breast are slathered with a tomato onion cream sauce. The rice and beans taste exactly as they look in the above photo.

A Guatemalan tamal de masa ($2.50, not pictured) was taken to go. They also have the larger Salvadoran versions for $5-6, as well as pupusas ($2.25-2.50) and Honduran baleadas ($3.50-6), the antojitos I will stick to on the next visit.

JAMAICA Queens

145-16 Jamaica Avenue

Restaurante y Panaderia Guatemalteco

GUATEMALA

This weekend I set off for the Jersey City African Cultural Arts Festival in Berry Lane Park, but despite plenty of people having a good time, I did not find a fruitful food scene. The lineup was full of a wide variety of performances and the park had a decent number of clothing and accessory vendors.

Thankfully I had planned a long, circuitous walking route to explore a good chunk of lands I had never explored, south and west of Journal Square before arriving at the park. My to-do list gained about ten places, Egyptian seafood restaurants, a couple new Filipino spots, and a number of Central American steam tables.

One of these, which immediately got crossed off the list after I did not find food at the festival was a tiny Guatemalan spot on Pacific Avenue. The company is actually split in two (above), with a bakery on the left and a small steam table kitchen on the right. The bakery has a long list of elaborate celebratory cakes on its roster, as well breads and sweets, but I needed real sustenance after 10 kilometers on the hot pavement.

A look through the menu reveals a rotating menu of Guatemalan standards, similar to the steam tables in Brooklyn and Queens and nothing on par to the still amazing Tierras Centro Americanas. Soups, various guisados, carne asada, etc. The stewed chicken, or pollo guisado ($6, above) looked the tastiest on the table, so I ordered it with rice, beans, and a sweet plantain. At this price, we need not ask any questions, and I was full for the rest of the day.

Although this area seems very far off the Grove Street PATH station, there is a "hipster" coffee shop right around the corner on Communipaw. Coming from the west, I would have never imagined this world arriving here yet, but it does seem like the edge of a frontier, as a couple walked their dog to get a coffee and returned immediately to the east. With plans to continue that way towards Grove Street, I instead turned back to search more promising non-hipster lands. Thankfully a couple Honduran joints popped up before I got back to Journal Square, as well as the murals below.

If you are in the area, check out the "Aqualand" project created by the Jersey City Mural Arts Program, as well as some other large format vacant building works:

JERSEY CITY New Jersey

311 Pacific Avenue

Garifuna Day

BELIZE
GUATEMALA
HONDURAS

The Evangelical Garifuna Church and connected Community Center are not really the type of storefronts that you actively notice going about your business each day, but for one day in April the block of Brook Avenue between East 141st and 142nd Streets is taped off and the modest crowd spills out of the small venues into the street. The actual blocking did not necessarily appear to be sanctioned by the NYPD, but on this sleepy Mott Haven street, no one seemed to mind.

April 12th is Garifuna Day, in Central America and beyond, celebrating the first arrival of the Garifuna people in the area well over 200 years ago.

Inside, tables are set up and women in West African-like dresses speak to each other in Spanish. Yellow, white, and black dominate, as they are the colors that signify the Garifuna flag and culture from Belize to Nicaragua. I traveled in some parts of Garifuna Guatemala and Honduras, and was surprised after a long road in Central America to find people who spoke English. The Garifuna here in New York are mostly from Honduras and surprising to me, all spoke Spanish amongst themselves, rather than English or their Garifuna language.

Hand-written signs were taped to the walls showing off cities where presumably members of the community center were from, spanning all the countries. A table to the right had a wide assortment of sweets to choose from, which many were stacking and stuffing into bags to take home. Smiles were shown my way from everyone, as is usually the case when an "outsider" makes their way into a community. Many men shook my hand and all welcomed me.

Near the back, the prominent thud heard throughout the room was found to be a woman pounding plantain in the traditional way. She seemed to be very focused and only nodded her head when I said the word plantain as part of a sentence.

The only dish on offer from the kitchen in the back was machuca ($12, below), served as a bowl of coconut-based soup and a baseball-sized sphere of mashed plantain. The mash is dense and fills you up quickly, so tear it off sparingly and enjoy the contents of the soup first.

Garifuna people all live near the Caribbean coasts of their respective countries, and as such a big portion of their diet is based on fish and seafood. This soup had both, a nice hunk of fish was accompanied by a small amount of conch and one shrimp. If you sat down at a Garifuna table, everyone would have a bowl of the soup in front of them and a large ball of the plantain would be placed in the center for everyone to grab from while they ate, creating a very communal atmosphere. Here in the community center, I had only my own hands breaking off pieces from the ball.

"Machuca" actually refers to the plantain mash or paste.

Back outside after eating, a percussionist had set up and was entertaining the crowd. Later a man took to the keyboards and sang. For the most part, a DJ played upbeat Caribbean music that got everyone bobbing their bodies.

MOTT HAVEN Bronx

Evangelical Garifuna Church Community Center

342 Brook Avenue

Karen Deli Grocery

GUATEMALA 🇬🇹

[UPDATE NOV 2018: A return visit has found a much more significant emphasis on the Guatemalan component than before, so this listing has been switched to reflect that. Some standard Mexican antojitos remain on the menu, but a specials list and daily list of guisados guatemaltecos has confirmed the shift. The text has been updated to reflect these changes.]

On a walking trip to scout and see what was new and interesting in the western part of Sunset Park a couple months ago, I came across Karen, which drapes Guatemalan and Honduran flags outside from the awning along with a Mexican one. They are geared towards the latter, but I like a specialty kitchen that tries to accommodate the other residents of a neighborhood, like El Atoradero in the Bronx. [UPDATE: As noted above, the kitchen has shifted their focus to Guatemalan plates, stews, and snacks.]

They advertise all their Mexican Guatemalan fare in the windows and also feature pupusas, the most famous item from El Salvador. The kitchen is a little hidden in the back of the shop, you must enter and navigate through the small grocery and tiny aisles to find it, but either one or two friendly ladies will greet you in the back where there are also two small tables to eat inside. [UPDATE: The dining area has expanded to six tables.]

Looming over the larger dining room is a big mural that acts as a love letter to Guatemala. Since the walls were green the last time we came in late 2015, the mural is at most three years old. Colorful homes, tropical coastlines, and women making food in traditional dress evoke memories that in reality the patrons most likely have little or no access to any longer. The rest of the store is painted in the bold blue of the Guatemalan flag. On each table are at least two bottles: a Guatemalan hot sauce called Picamás and ketchup from Pollo Campero, the beloved fast food chicken chain from the country.

On a recent night I found hilachas ($9, below) on the specials board, a dish hardly ever seen in the region. They serve it with rice and beans, the stew is less "soupy" than some, but delicious. The cuts of meat are somewhat dry unfortunately, but the stew itself works its way into the rice and could not be better.

As always with Guatemalan meals, homemade corn tortillas are served alongside plates. Their versions are much thicker than their Mexican counterparts and stay warmer much longer. They are irresistibly full of aroma and flavor and immediately had me piling the other ingredients on top. Not too long after I had finished both, the chefs offered me more from another batch they just made.

[NOTE: The rest of this article is unchanged from 2011, but some of these items or ingredients might not be available any longer.]

The tacos al pastor ($2.50 each, above) are big and come pre-loaded with their avocado salsa. Al pastor is almost always better from a spit of course, but this is the best non-spit version I have tasted, juicy and with a decent kick. If you need more bite, the plate comes with your very own jalapeño pepper (at bottom)

I did not see one on the picture wall, but I was in the mood for a huarache ($4, below), which she had no hesitation in saying could be done, and got right into spreading the ground masa to make its base. She spread a layer of the thin beans, and topped it with my selection of carne enchilada. This too came out very nice and needed no additional flavoring.

The last item ordered was a quesadilla de pollo ($3, below), which had ample portions of fresh queso blanco and quite a mild overall taste that was somehow sweet. I went ahead and loaded this one up with the salsa verde provided at the table.

I got to speaking with the lady who cooked us everything, asking if she made this or that, and was most happy to find that she was in the business of baleadas, a Honduran specialty that is not too abundant in the city. I will be happy to stop back and try her Central American cooking on my next visit. It is always nice to be so welcome in a place that is serving up such wonderful food.

Use with caution.

On an avenue that is packed with small Mexican antojito joints, Karen is really shining bright for its atmosphere of friendliness and quality ingredients, especially the spicing. For those that need an introduction to Sunset Park, this is a good place to start.

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SUNSET PARK Brooklyn

6116 5th Avenue

I COULD USE YOUR HELP

Eat the World NYC is and always has been free. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better and you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World NYC is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

You can Venmo me @JAREDCOHEE or click here to send PayPal donation, no account is necessary. Thank you!

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