It's Pupusa Time, baby!

Plus: West Town's new vinyl bar/ramen shop. [View this email in your browser]( [READER Logo]( [Food & Drink]( | October 4, 2024 Everything changed the day Jon Anleu first made pupusas with heirloom masa. “I brought my brother and sister over, and we all sat down and ate,” he says. “They just looked at each other like, ‘What is this? This is amazing. What have we been eating? Life is a lie.’ Since that day, I never went back. Once you see the light, how are you gonna?”  “Back” was the industrially produced Maseca-brand corn flour which formed the [stuffed Central American griddle cakes]( the siblings grew up eating. That’s no slight against Anleu’s mother, Deborah, who learned her craft in San Salvador, the crucible of the pupusa arts. “This woman breathes or sneezes, and there's 30 pupusas,” says Anleu, who cooked all over town up until the pandemic (Quartino, the Promontory, Topolobampo). “I wanted to introduce food that me and my friends would hope my mom would make on a Friday night—because we were all stoned, and pupusas are the perfect thing for that.”  Not long after launching his pupusa pop-up, he got ahold of [the good stuff]( milled from Michigan-grown heirloom corn. With these he became a hero of the pandemic pop-up economy—not least of which for his rigorous sourcing—before dialing it way back in late 2022 to tend to his young boys in the coastal paradise of Michigan City, Indiana.  Had we seen the last of these belly-busting corn cakes, oozing lacy Wisconsin mozzarella fricos from their char-stippled edges?  Heck no. Anleu burst back into the fray late this summer, just in time for [Pupusa Time]( to fire up the plancha for the next [Monday Night Foodball]( the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at [Frank and Mary’s Tavern](.  Sourcing the best ingredients possible is one thing, but Anleu is also a people pleaser. You don’t typically see those crispy cheese skirts on traditional pupusas. “[That was] heavily forced on us by the masses,” he reports. “I’m not the biggest fan. [But] everyone loves it and it really increased the interest. I spent an eternity perfecting the technique. I still make them so they don’t bust, then when I’m cooking them, I smash them down to build the cheese lace. Everyone is happy, and I die a bit inside.”  You see what he’ll do for you?  This Monday, he’s offering two varieties, for meat and plant-eaters alike: a beef birria–stuffed pupusa and a mushroom chipotle variant. Each is formed from a swirl of Janie’s Mill white and Bloody Butcher red cornmeal, and each is crowned with a thatch of curtido, the ubiquitous oregano-seasoned cabbage-carrot slaw; and lashes of solar-powered hot sauce.    Anleu’s powering up the plancha at 5 PM this Monday, October 7, at 2905 N. Elston in Avondale.  In the interim, ogle the full Foodball schedule: [a man in a recording studio wearing headphones and working on a record]( [Wax Vinyl Bar and Ramen Shop puts a spin on Japanese cuisine and listening cafes]( A husband-and-wife pair opened the West Town restaurant and bar to celebrate local music and DJ culture. by [Chasity Cooper]( | [Read more]( → [It’s Pupusa Time at the next Monday Night Foodball]( Check out Jon Anleu’s stuffed and griddled Central American heirloom corn cakes at the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at Frank and Mary’s Tavern. by [Mike Sula]( | [Read more]( → [Reader Bites]( celebrates dishes, drinks, and atmospheres from the Chicagoland food scene. Have you had a recent food or drink experience that you can’t stop thinking about? Share it with us at [fooddrink@chicagoreader.com](mailto:fooddrink@chicagoreader.com?subject=Reader%20Bites&body=). [Pumpkin bread at the Common Cup]( Autumn is the pumpkin bread at the Common Cup. Fresh out of the oven in the morning or wrapped in plastic and marked at half price the following afternoon, with chocolate chips or protestant plain, it’s the best pumpkin bread, quietly perfected at the Rogers Park coffee spot. — Jonah Nink [a plate of food with fish and rice on a blue plate]( [Maman Zari has the only fine-dining Persian tasting menu in the country]( July 2023 | Check out what a former flight attendant and an Italian chef have in mind for the future of this ancient cuisine. by [Mike Sula]( | [Read more]( → [cocktail with foam in clear glass]( [Cocktail Challenge: Whey]( February 2014 | John Smillie of the Violet Hour has his way with a two-whey flip. by [Kate Schmidt]( | [Read more]( → Get the latest issue of the Chicago Reader Thursday, October 3, 2024 [READ ONLINE: VOL. 54, NO. 1]( [VIEW/DOWNLOAD ISSUE (PDF)]( [Facebook icon]( [Instagram icon]( [Twitter icon]( [LinkedIn icon]( [YouTube icon]( [Website icon]( [Logo] You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from the Chicago Reader. 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