Irene Cuevas, the area’s pupusa queen, may no longer be cooking every day—the third location of this Salvadoran food empire is overseen by grandson and granddaughter-in-law Jose and Natasha Melgar—but the cooking shows no signs of slippage.

The signature item—savory griddle cakes filled with zucchini, loroco, and beans and oozing a soft queso blanco—may be the area’s best. Virtually greaseless, they make a terrific mini-meal topped by a few spoonfuls of the crunchy, spicy curtado, a lightly vinegary slaw, and a few squirts of salsa verde. They make a cheap meal, too—each pupusa is the price of a bottle of water from a vending machine.

Irene’s also offers a few Honduran dishes, including a taco that’s rolled like a cigar, deep-fried, and buried under a mound of pickled pink cabbage, and bailadas, in which hunks of beef, creamy refried beans, queso blanco, hard-boiled egg, and avocado are interleaved in the folds of a fry bread.

End your meal with a commendable flan or a rarity called nuegados, deep-fried rounds of mashed yucca with a molasses dipping sauce. Even better, return to the regular menu for a tamal de elote, a thick bundle of sweetened corn ringed by a thin, sweet sour cream.

Open daily for lunch and dinner.