Nicaragua Restaurant, San Francisco

A flamboyant sign adorns the outside of Nicaragua Restaurant in Bernal Heights. Inside, the restaurant lets customers know what kind of cuisine they will be enjoying with a map of Nicaragua on the wall, a giant flag, national symbols and pasted-up currency. It may not be the fanciest place, with its red-vinyl chairs and blue-and-white gingham tablecloths, but for those looking for some traditional Central American dishes, this is the spot. Nicaragua Restaurant is where S.F’s Nicaraguan community eats. It’s a place for mondongo, nactamales and all the other “fritanga” (street food) of a Latin American nation whose distinctiveness all too easily gets buried under the avalanche of Mexican fare.