El Tazumal

we had a great meal at El Tazumal. the food was super tasty and the pupusas were not greasy. I even ventured into having a shrimp cocktail which was surprisingly yummy. my husband ordered the pollo encebollado (chicken with sautéed onions in a tomato sauce) and loved it. we tried the tamales but unfortunately those were the only thing that was a little bland. the space was clean and service wasn’t as slow as some of the reviewers have noted. we’re looking forward to returning again soon.

Never been here but family told me I had to come and visit my roots. I must say this restaurant didn’t let me down. I had the Sopa de Gallina and Pupusas yum yum yum!!! I must come back again.

This place is very underrated. Very good food if you’re looking for a new place to eat come here ! Yee #415

Slow as all hell for a take out order of two tacos. There are 4 other taquerias within a mile that put this place to shame.

Last time me and my sister order Pupusas but i have to said you need to used a real chicharon. I am 100% Salvadorian and that in the pupusa is not chicharon ok.
When you first start your place was my favorited but now i have to said 0 start Sorry.

Salvadorian food at its finest!
I brought a huge group here for lunch.
There was about 35 of us. We occupied half of the restaurant. But it didn’t seem like we were waiting long at all before we got our drinks and food!
I spoke with the chef and planed the menu a few days before coming in.
They were willing to work with me and my large party.
My timing was off and we ended up arriving to the restaurant early! And hour early! Even so, they were quick with service.
Truly authentic Latin vibes in this place. Great food. Great service. Great vibes.
I ordered a large tray of pupusas.
Plantain.
Yucca
Chicken & veggies
Rice
Beans
Cabbage
So much great food!!!

Try the shrimp cocktail! Please do!!! Pupusas are excellent! I will be coming back!

Excellent food with authentic taste .100% Salvadorian. We are lucky to have this restaurant in San Rafael. Best wishes to this business keep the nice work

Happy to see this place here on the West End end of San Rafael! There are so many things to choose from on the menu that I would really like to go back again and try some other things out. You will definitely get your money’s worth out of the food, and that can be saying a lot if you are eating out for dinner in Marin.
Don’t expect hard liquor — it’s basic beer & wine — by basic, there wasn’t even a list on the menu and the overly familiar choices of beer rattled off were obvious ones like Corona, Modelo, Pacifico.
Service was smiley, but spotty at best. No one greeted the front door at all. Tortillas were missing from the fajitas, and it wasn’t even worth trying to flag down anyone. My biggest gripe is one I have with a lot a Marin restaurants. Come 8 o’clock, an employee grabbed a chair and stepped up to pull the chain on the «open» sign. Closed. At 8pm. On a warm summer July night. Within 30 – 60 seconds two different parties of 4 showed up at the door and were turned away. What is it with Marin and these restaurants closing up shop so early?
No wonder so many of them come and go!
All that being said — the food was the star of the show and worth returning for soon. That is, if I am not hungry too late in the evening.

Have never eaten here before, and on a whim decided to drop in.
Ordered the enchilada plate lunch special and was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food.
The enchiladas had a generous amount of chicken and the green sauce, wonderful! The refried beans were creamy, the rice light and savory, and the salad on the side included cucumber and a slice of perfectly ripened tomato. I can’t emphasize enough how fresh everything tasted.
Some establishments use a microwave to punch up the food’s temperature, but that was NOT the case here. Oh, and the service was attentive without being cloying. :)
If you’re looking for great food that is reasonably priced, please consider giving them a try!

Nowhere near as good as the San Pablo location. Plus, they say it will take 20 mins for the pupusas, but they really mean at least 30 mins, sometimes more. Still, delicious sauce and decent pupusas!

Really good food, the Pupusas are to die four. This restaurant is really unique food is exquisite the flavors are out rages really love the proposals in the corn Asada wet Barito was in red sauce unbelievable One of the best places I ever ate at if you’re in San Rafael off of four street come try this you guys will be very impressed

This was some of the best and authentic Latin American food in Marin County. I had the Chile Relleno and it was awesome. My step-​son had a burrito and he said that it was by far better than any of the taquerias we have gone to. I would also recommend the pupusas. The servers were very friendly and they attended to our every need

Delicious and quite a value – I had two tamales Central American style (a big favorite of mine), a couple of pasteles de carne, frijoles, and a Modelo, and the total bill was $ 15. The food was piping hot, delicious, and the smells and flavors triggered my memories of Central America.
The décor is scant, it’s a big rectangular boxy room. The service was a little slow at the beginning, but once my order was taken it arrived promptly.
I’ll be back soon.

As I promised, a five star review for removing the extra charge for the sauce. Everyone that I recommend El Tazumal to comes back with great things to say. Unfortunately I don’t work in the area anymore but I’ll be by there anyways as often as I can to get my pupusa fix.

Delicious pupusas especially the frijole y queso ones. Mmm!!! I really like this Salvadoran restaurant as they have traditional dishes as well as some Mexican dishes. They make really tender carne asada. The staff are welcoming and friendly, and this place is packed on Saturdays. If you are on fourth street near E St, this restaurant is worth your time.

El cervicio es malo!
Tardan una eternidad en traer la comida !
— — BAD CERVICE — — -

I would give this place 5 starts if it wasn’t for the fact that the second time I came in they took other peoples others that came after, before they took ours.
A side from that, this is the best place I have found in Marin county for authentic Salvadorian food. The first time I went in at around three on a Friday and it was very slow. We were sited fast and served fast as well. The person I was with go the sopa de mariscos, and I got pupusas and empanadas. All of it was delicious!
The second time I went on a Saturday night and the place was almost full. That was when we were kept waiting a while :/​. But the food was still delicious and had a very authentic salvadorian taste!
All in all, the prices are reasonable and the food is great!

It’s pretty unfortunate that they are located on the relatively quiet end of downtown San Rafael, else they’d probably have given Sol Foods a run for their central American money!
We walked in to, as everyone else noted, the décor of the erstwhile «Citrus» which is not to say that it looked bad or anything of that sort. Maybe I was looking forward to the food a lot, but I failed to notice any Asian theme or vibe in the interiors.
Anyway, we started with the Papusa with the cheese and vegetable filling. It was served with a large container of El Salvadoran cabbage salsa (akin to a cole slaw without the dressing), and a small jar of mild salsa. The papusas were cheesy and gooey and the veggies lent a little crunchy texture though they were too little to add to the flavour overall. Nonetheless, I am a sucker for freshly baked in-​house bread and the likes; ergo, it was lovely!
For the entrée, I asked for the fried chicken with onion sauce but what they gave me looked like the chicken with sauteed onions instead. No worries! It came with sides of rice, whole or fried beans, and a salad with blu-​cheese dressing. The portion size was humongous! The picture I took didn’t do it justice as there was really no sense of scale in it. The chicken was a little on the mild side but the aforementioned jar of mild salsa upped the ante and went with the chicken really well. The whole beans were awesome and I polished off the rice with it. The chicken with the sauteed onions and salsa hit the spot! Personally, I would have preferred the chicken to have had a little dance with a nice spice or herb rub and/​or marinade.
I got a bite of my friend’s prawns — the chicken and prawns version of their «surf-​n-​turf» entrée. The prawns were divine!!! They’re are actual real, sweet, jumbo prawns; not jumbo shrimps that so many restaurants blatantly misname, and plate, as prawns. Once you go prawn, you don’t go back; shrimps taste like paper in comparison. I am told the chicken was very well seasoned and done perfectly. In fact it looked way better than mine!
All in all, I would definitely come back, and bring friends and visitors to this place. And with most of the entrees priced barely more than a buck or two on either side of a Hamilton*, it’s most definitely bang-​for-​the-​buck!
Come hungry.
* $ 10 bill.

See that part of my profile that begins with «my last meal on Earth» and ends with «likely involves carne asada»? Well, here’s hoping judgement day ‘aint right around the corner but if it is and if it ends as predicted look for me here, at the home of the best carne asada in Marin (throws down gauntlet).
It positively excites me to find this 4 month old restaurant opening on the west end of San Rafael’s 4^th Street. It fills a Marin void that I regularly lament about (lack of ethnic cuisine from developing nations), brings greater diversity to this end of the street, and serves ridiculously tasty food.
Others were right in saying that the owners did little to change up the décor from what was previously a Thai-​fusion joint. Rather than find this disagreeable I actually found it quite charming. The previous occupants hung attractive cloth curtain dividers to break up the space, painted the walls a tasteful dark red, and installed a small, tropical fountain at the entryway. With this décor intact, the place is a little more upscale than it might otherwise be and it’s for the better.
The huge menu (lizard soup anyone?) covers a wide swath of Central American cuisine: Salvadorean, Honduran, Nicaraguan, and «traditional Mexican». Meals begin with complimentary chips and excellent, spicy homemade red salsa which is replaced, upon request, when emptied.
Pupusas have been mentioned by other reviewers and for good reason: they are perfect and one could make a meal here from those alone. They’re served along with a Tupperware container full of help-​yourself pickled cabbage and a syrup bottle full of mild pureed tomato salsa. I tried one «cheese and Salvadorean vegetables» and one «cheese and bean» ($ 2 each, minimum order of 2). Pupusas are filling; Two would be a satisfying starter for three people.
Because Joel P. had mentioned «best taco salad» in his review I had to sample from the «traditional Mexican» part of the menu. The taco salad ($ 6), with your choice of meat (carne asada, duh) is a beautiful thing, topped with guacamole and sour cream, and priced ridiculously well. Use the table salsa as dressing and you do have a pretty perfect taco salad.
The Fish Soup ($ 11, with or without vegetables) was a full meal which could easily have been shared by several people. Colorful and steaming hot, it was tasty and filling and probably included the RDA of seafood for several days running. The fish in the soup was inclusive of skin and bones (read: authentic) so take note if that’s an issue. It was served with 2 «tortillas» which were really just unfilled pupusas and too dense and filling to bother with.
Service is great but food can take a while to come out which is where the wide selection of beers, wine, tequila, and large screen TVs come in.
El Tazumal is just the sort of place I’ve long been wishing for. If it sounds like your type of place, try it; I think you’ll like it too.

This Latin American restaurant — it covers multiple menu items from across the region, including Mexico and El Salvador — opened recently, in the former Citrus & Spice location in San Rafael. Apparently it is the third location bearing this name, under the same owners — I believe the other two locations are in San Pablo and Richmond.
This review covers three visits, where we really haven’t stretched the menu, but I can attest to killer pupusas (complete with a mild salsa and a kind of pickled slaw, not certain of the name), quesadillas, and some regional dishes include a crispy pork with fried yucca (delicious) and shredded beef dish, name unknown, with mint, radishes, and other seasonings and served with black beans. Service is casual and super-​friendly, and the clientele (since it’s basically word of mouth at this point, with no website and no Unilocal listing until now) primarily speak Spanish — so they’re probably putting some real home cooking in folks’ mouths.
More on these guys later, after a few more visits, and I will adjust the rating accordingly if needed. I hope they promote the place, because right now it has a very «temporary» feeling (with a placeholder sign on the outside), and you can’t find them on the web (even their other locations are a bit spotty in terms of web info).
Todd R.