El Sopon

This is a restaurant that is on the west side of the Pan Am about 200 meters north of where the road into town splits off. They have a little sign indicating they have mariscos (seafood) which is relatively rare in Estelí and their parking lot usually has quite a few vehicles in it. Executive summary: glad I decided to give it a try.

The restaurant sits behind a dirt parking lot and is a combination of rooms built around what was likely the original restaurant. Thus, it is quite big but each room is small enough to be very comfortable. The menu included quite a few non-seafood dishes but I was there for seafood and picked the seafood soup. The waiter told me that it was made to order and there would be a 20 minute wait. Sounded good to me.

Almost exactly 20 minutes later I had a big bowl of soup in front of me. The broth was buttery with onion, garlic, chiltoma, celery and carrot in it. There was also a whole crab, probably a whole red snapper and some shrimp. It came with a tortilla and cheese. Tasty. Total price, C$50 (about $3). I would like to say something about other menu items but all the tables I could see (3) all had just bowls of the same soup.