Dual mission 🍽
Dual mission 🍽
Monse's Taste of El Salvador expands and experiments with Sivar at The Well
Now in its sixth year of service as a sit-down pupuseria, Monse’s Taste of El Salvador in Old Colorado City needs little introduction. It’s a town favorite for both gluten-free and vegan fares, but more than satisfies omnivores too, with an expansive menu of stuffed cornmeal discs plus savory sides and starters. The outfit has been such a hit since opening in early 2018, I wrote about it actually expanding during the covid pandemic in 2021. In 2022, they added a juice bar to the mix (which reopens for the season around May/June). And in early 2023, they added their first sister outfit: Sivar, located in The Well food hall.
If you’re new to town or just haven’t made the trip to any of the businesses, perhaps you’d benefit from a quick primer on Salvadoran pupusas, and my mid 2018 review will be handy to skim. (Plus you’ll learn why proprietor/chef Monse Hines once had 14,000 pupusas stacked for distribution; she started out by selling frozen products to grocery stores and schools, having moved to the Springs in 2011.)
But assuming you’re a perennial pupusa patron, I actually want to skip the item to focus on what’s new and different at Sivar that you can’t find at home base. Showing great restraint when I dropped by the The Well one evening, I managed to resist ordering the pupusa plate (stuffing options: vegan bean and jalapeño, pollo loco, Pueblo chile or picante chicharron) and the Pupusa Colorado (a choice of one of those options plus a topping of either carne asada, chicken chimichurri or vegan pastor). Instead, I got frisky with some empanadas and something called the Quesa-taco, caving only a little to order Monse’s fabulous yucca fries, available at the other eatery — but hey, yucca fries.
Before I break those down and tease some new items on the way, it’s useful to know Sivar’s specific backstory, which informs not only its existence here, but its underlying mission and unique flavor. Because there’s something wonderful going on behind the scenes that you’d never necessarily know about, and for some would-be diners, it might equate to reason alone to go.
After my visit to Sivar (slang for El Salvador), I glean this backstory from a long phone chat with Monse’s husband and business co-owner Tim Hines. He first draws attention to the “Central American Cuisine” tagline attached to Sivar’s branding, which is to distinguish it from more of a Salvadoran-specific focus at the home base pupuseria (though it too does host a few items that highlight other nearby countries’ cuisines). But don’t get too literal about it, because influences from South American countries like Colombia already appear on the menu alongside items hailing from Mexico, Guatemala and beyond. He says Sivar evokes nightlife in El Salvador’s capital San Salvador, where there’s a melting pot of Latin American cuisines and a hungry young audience.
Hines next points to the charitable mission of The Well’s parent entity The Philanthropy Collective — which project consultant Justin Anderson elaborates on here — and says they’re matching that spirit with Sivar by working through Lutheran Family Services to provide jobs for Central American refugees now living in our area. “We have a similar interest in growing community and celebrating culture,” Hines says, noting a LFS employee is a regular at the pupuseria who’d approached them about helping place refugees in jobs.
An unexpected benefit was that these workers brought their own family recipes and culinary history with them, so Tim says Monse has embraced allowing them to influence the menu with personal touches, essentially being flavor collaborators. “Monse would listen to their ideas, and say, ‘okay, let’s do it,’” says Tim.
Sivar’s concept had been on the couples’ minds for years, he says, noting they’ve always had an interest in growing outward. So when they were contacted by the Well, Tim says it offered the perfect testing ground: to launch in a small-kitchen vendor format attached to the larger food hall. They see it as a place for experimentation, which could lead to a stand alone brick-and-mortar elsewhere in the future. (The Well does exist partly as a culinary incubation space as well, so that’s fitting.)
But for now, let’s get back to the food. As of this writing, Sivar’s only a couple weeks away from introducing new items like a Mexican torta (sandwich) , lomo saltado (a Peruvian beef stir fry) and birria tamales (whereas the pupuseria serves chicken or mushroom and chile). There’s also something they did as a special that was such a hit Tim says they keep receiving calls to get it on the menu: they’re calling it the Avalanche, and it’s another form of the Pupusa Colorado, but smothered in queso sauce. Naturally, all of these I would like to try. (I had no idea at the time I dined that more was on the way.)
This is a good time to mention that Sivar currently remains 100-percent gluten-free, but Tim cautions to start saying gluten-free-friendly because they are sharing space in the back with three other kitchens. That said, they’re still taking every precaution to not cross-contaminate cooking equipment, and have plans for dedicated ovens and fryers as the menu expands; and they’re talking with their loyal clientele so everyone’s aware of the (low) risk levels.
That brings us to our meal, finally, and those addictive yucca fries dipped in a house garlic aioli. Some outfits make yucca fries super dense, but the techniques here render them somehow airier and lighter, with a super crisp shell. A pilsner from New Image Brewing ordered at the Gift Horse Bar where we’re sitting pairs rather nicely.
For the Guatemalan-style empanadas pictured above, they’re made by hand here with organic corn masa. They too are fluffy in their own way, and arrive with a red onion, jalapeño and pico relish of sorts, with a drizzle of garlic sauce. We choose the chicken chimichurri option (saving the vegan pastor for another time) and find the dough wedges jammed with tender chicken bits that benefit from a dip in the piquant jalapeño-tomatillo house spicy sauce (from the pupuseria) served on the side. That’s partly because we crave much more of the Argentinian chimichurri flavor (parsley and oregano with garlic and an acid like citrus or red wine vinegar); we don’t taste enough of it inside. Another stumble is unevenly prepared rice with clumpy and sticky bits and an al dente crunch in sections. (Tim did note some general “growing pains” inherent to any new project, when we spoke.) Still, despite the contrary menu descriptors, the filling empanadas please in their own way.
That leaves us with the Quesa-Tacos, as stoney a stoner food or drunk a drunk food item as you will find — which is to say heavy comfort lavish yum yums. I mean, you’re talking about making quesadillas essentially then using them open-face as taco shells to hold (our choice of) carne asada with fixings. What could go wrong? Nothing. Especially when you pour the jalapeño-tomatillo sauce over bites and elevate the heat level and tanginess. That layers in with the unctuous quality of rich cheese, much of it skirted through caramelization, and the saltiness of the chewy beef bits, some textures more akin to ground beef than skirt or flank cuts.
In my mind, I tend to hold Monse’s Pupuseria in a category of lighter fare, even if large in portion and easy to get stuffed on. But here, with this Quesa-Taco maneuver, I feel like I’ve seen a reveal to her (and perhaps her staff’s) naughty side, basically a carefree, go-for-it mentality that says something like “yeah we cater to vegans here, but we also know how to punish your ass into happy submission with all the sensory bliss points. You want to party? Let’s party.” (Insert beats from Well house DJ Joe Silvik.)
We enjoy the last of our Pueblo Mágico cocktail from the bar, ordered thinking the reposado tequila base might make a good friend of the taco, but the cherry-vanilla spice and orange oil take it into a much more wintery direction than anticipated. So we save the sips for more of a liquid dessert.
Having now learned about much more on the way at Sivar, I can say I took only a glimpse and have much unfinished business with the place, to be dealt with soon. It’s not a far reach to think Sivar’s future is bright, wherever the concept ends up after this trial period, given Monse’s Pupuseria’s enduring success.