Set in a corner of the Cypress Park section of North Figueroa, butted right against Nightingale Junior High, Maria’s Restaurant and Pupuseria is an informal family spot with no pretensions. The Salvadoran food is good and homemade, the service is fast and friendly and the prices are suited to budget dining. And you won’t find a better pupusa north of the El Salvador-Guatemala border.

You can hear those pupusas –-and smell them--being handcrafted as you enter the restaurant door, the hand-clapping sound of corn dough being shaped for the griddle. And Maria’s restaurant serves them hot and fluffy, the melted cheese oozing out with the first bite. They’re $1.85 each and three of them make for a hearty meal.

For the uninitiated, pupusas are stuffed, thick corn tortillas that are most often filled with cheese and some other item: beans, chorizo pork sausage, or sometimes loroco, a vine flower herb that’s common in Salvador and savored by that country’s emigrant population.

Accompanying the pupusa on the table is a customary “curtido” relish: lightly pickled cabbage with a touch of onion, a bit of minced carrot and oregano. It serves as a wonderful cooling counterpoint to the warm cheese of the pupusa filling.

Pupusas may be the central attraction at Maria's, but they share the menu with a number of interesting Salvadoran specialties. “Salpicon” is a chopped minced beef dish, reminiscent of Thai larb. The minced beef mixture includes mint, radish and carrots—it’s interesting and delicious—and it’s served with refried beans and pale yellow saffron rice to make a hearty meal.

There’s also a full breakfast menu and a selection of hearty soups: beef, chicken, shrimp and fish, all priced at $8 and each a mal in itself. There’s a specialty of “sopa de gallina India,” described as a “ranch hen soup” and for the culinary adventurer, a “sopa de patas,” a beef feet soup that we saved for another visit.

In addition to the usual tamarindo and horchata, drinks included the Salvadoran “arrayan,” a twist on the Mexican guayaba. It’s very sweet but with a delicious tropical fruit flavor. And those in the mood for something sweet might try the “chilate de nuegados,” nuggets of sweet, breaded fried dough served in a circle around a dish of molasses-honey sauce.

Tiny and unassuming (the dining room has three booths and three tables), Maria’s Restaurant and Pupuseria offers tasty food in a warm and welcoming setting. Located at: 3401 North Figueroa. Telephone: 323-221-1488.