This Salvadoran restaurant's roster of atoles (ah-Toll-ays), hot sweetened drinks usually made with a cornmeal base, varies from day to day. The more common varieties — atol de elote, fortified with whole kernels of corn, and atol de chocolate, also known as champurrado — seem to be reliably available at El Farolito.
Among the less common found here are atol de piña (first cup below, small, $1.25). Recently I found that not only does cornmeal blunt the pineapple's acidity, but also that a hot atol can be very invigorating even on a hot day. Cold weather brings a wider selection of atoles, including one made with toasted corn and another (second cup below) with semilla marañon. Elsewhere, often you'll see "cashew" translated simply as "marañon"; perhaps the fuller name is an effort to distinguish the cashew nut from the adjoining part of the same plant called the cashew apple, or pomme de cajou.
In botanical terms what we usually call the nut of the cashew is actually its fruit, while the cashew apple, a swollen stalk of the plant, is a so-called false fruit. Let's cut to the chase: This is made with the former, and laden with little crunchy bits.
El Farolito
5515 Bergenline Ave. (at Schley Pl.), West New York, New Jersey
201-223-4440
