Valentine El Salvador

So, my hubby and I decided to do Valentine's Day early this year. For anyone who doesn't know, we have a little tradition that we go to a restaurant we've never been to before for every Valentine's day.

This year I found a little place in Ottumwa that serves authentic cuisine from El Salvador. My husband spent several months in El Salvador while he was in the military. They were providing relief from hurricane Mitch. So I thought this would be a good place to do our Valentine's Day.

We had a little trouble finding the place, they have apparently changed their name since google was last there, but we eventually got there. It's Restaurant La Bendicion or Juanita's, we're not sure which is the official name. Anyway, it's a tiny little place with about 6 tables and a long counter. We were the only customers, and were a little perplexed by the fact that no one in the place spoke English at all. We used the little spanish we know to get menu's and place our order.

Captain enjoyed the atmosphere which was many posters about El Salvador and a large map. The food came, there was a lot of it. It was close to what I would consider typical mexican fair, but the options were fairly limited. I had stuffed pepper and Capt had tenderized meat (the actual name of the dish ).
The refried beans were cooked differently and I enjoyed them a lot. The pepper was not a bell pepper (I should have considered that a possibility, but I didn't) so was a little to hot for me. It was decent, a little greasy, but overall an okay dinner.

We watched as several people came in to pick up orders, all looking at us in wonderment. We suspect it's the first time they've seen white people eating there. I actually began to enjoy the look of surprise and confusion that hit the people's faces as they saw us.

Anyway, it was alright, we probably won't be making a trip back to Ottumwa to go there again, but it was a neat experience anyway. Then we headed to the theater to watch Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief. A very good movie, I would recommend, we both enjoyed it alot. We shared a bag of Reese's Pieces and a large Diet Coke (hooray for holiday no calorie rules )

So that was our Valentine's Day in a nutshell. It was not exceptionally romantic, but we had a good time none the less, and created a memory. In my opinion, a much better after effect than dead flowers or candy wrappers.