Panes La Chata

🇸🇻 EL SALVADOR
📍 12004 Vanowen Street, North Hollywood, San Fernando Valley
🅿️ Street Parking
💲 Cash Only
🥤 No Alcohol

If you grew up in El Salvador, the coming winter months would signal the arrival of pan con pollo season, a uniquely Salvadoran sandwich that is often eaten around the holidays and especially during new year celebrations. It is unlike the versions found in neighboring countries like Guatemala and Honduras despite sharing a name, always a long-simmered chicken stuffed in a fat, puffy roll.

While you will find Salvadoran tortas and sandwiches that kill children on the streets of any city, panes con pollo are a bit more rare and usually made at home. They require extensive cooking of the chicken, which spends a lot of time simmering on the stove made as a guisado (stew). This makes finding Panes La Chata in North Hollywood all the more special, offering panes con pollo (below) three evenings a week since spring on the corner in front of the proprietor's residence.

Translated as "bread with chicken," this celebratory sandwich is much more than that, served with a mountain of vegetables on top of the stewed chicken and a side cup of gravy straight from the pot it was cooked in. While it might not seem like it from a small photo, the sandwich is gigantic, filling a regular styrofoam takeout container from corner to corner.

A pan con pollo is assembled when ordered so the bread does not get soggy from the delicious guisado. The gravy is served on the side and should be poured on when you are ready to eat. You do not see chairs or seating here at the tent, so take this home, pull up a chair at the table, and lean in. It is going to be messy. Once you find pieces of dark meat underneath the garden of beets, tomatoes, carrots, and more, be careful as some are still on the bone.

Sometimes you will see a sandwich board set out on the sidewalk with other options, but on this day the Santa Ana Winds were howling through the Valley so a conversation needed to take place to see what was on offer. The lid of a metal tray was lifted to reveal canoas de plátano (above), a dessert of ripe sweet plantains fried and filled with a cream made from milk, condensed milk, sugar, and eggs.

These "canoes" show up in bakeries all over El Salvador and can be ordered in many typical casual restaurants, a favorite for those that need to take care of a sweet tooth. A syrup or liquid sugar drizzle of some kind is put over the top and spooned into your takeout container, as well as raisins and cinnamon lined up in the boat.

On many weekends you can also find small Salvadoran-style tamales pisques (above), a corn masa treasure stuffed with refried beans and steamed in banana leaves. Using these instead of corn husks makes the final product very moist, as none of the fats or oils from the beans can escape while steaming and gets infused into the masa. It is just a few bites and should be combined with their homemade tomato salsa, which comes on the side.

If you see a row of brown paper bags, you know you are in luck and there are still quesadillas available. Quesadilla salvadoreña (below) is a sweet bread that is cooked with hard white cheese inside of it, a combination of flavors that are all subtle enough to be enjoyed especially well with coffee. Make sure to take one home for the next morning, as it makes the perfect companion to your favorite hot beverage.

Look for the stand during evenings on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, in front of the Park Vanowen Apartments at the corner of Vanowen Street and Ben Avenue. This is also the residence of the three generations of women you will find operating the stand (and four if you count the family inside), so the freshly cooked guisados and baked goods are ready to go close to the source.

They are also really good people, and a joy to chat with and learn more about these foods. The pride they show in their cooking, especially if you can speak a bit of Spanish with the older two, is as clear as a day the Santa Anas blow away the smog out of Los Angeles.

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