Tina Visits Ercilias Restaurant in Mt. Pleasant

Photo credit to to “Angela N.” from yelp.com.

When I first moved to Mount Pleasant last summer I spent some time scoping out the main drag and was pretty excited to see all the different restaurants lining the street. I had just moved down the hill from Cleveland Park – which is also full of options – but this was totally different. There are no less than 15 restaurants on Mount Pleasant Street, many of which offer some assortment of Mexican and or Salvadoran food. This is my favorite kind of food, so I was anxious to try these places out, and my friends and I talked about organizing our own “Mount Pleasant Restaurant Week.” I’m not quite sure what happened, but this never actually got off the ground. I think I ate a few pupusas, maybe a taco or two, and then found my favorite joints and didn’t do a whole lot of exploring. So, as you may be beginning to notice, “our intern in Mount Pleasant” has decided to use this experience as an opportunity to conduct her own neighborhood restaurant tour. In the next few weeks I’ll try and switch things up a bit, but on the whole you can expect a lot more of these. This week – Ercilia’s!

Right at the intersection of Mount Pleasant and Irving Streets, Ercilia’s Restaurant is home to some delicious, authentic, and pretty cheap Salvadoran and Mexican cuisine. Oddly enough, they offer Italian fare as well. I’m not really sure how that fits into the selection but unfortunately I don’t speak very good Spanish, and the man behind the counter didn’t seem to speak very good English. So, the notion that people like spaghetti and meatballs might have to be enough of an explanation for that one.

I settled on three beef tacos and my friend chose a bean and cheese pupusa and a vegetarian taco. Even though they weren’t too busy, we did have to wait kind of a while for our food to be prepared. This was a little annoying, but if you don’t have someone to chat with, there’s a pretty good chance that you will become enthralled in whatever telenovela or Spanish talk show is playing on the TV set. Or maybe you can ponder why it’s June and the place is still decorated with Christmas stockings?! Anyhow, aside from the long-ish wait, I’d say the food was really good and the options are plentiful. I wasn’t blown away, but we both left satisfied and with our bellies full!