Central American in Denver

Aji bills itself as a Latin American restaurant, and its menu is a postmodern fusion of Peruvian, Mexican, Argentine, Cuban, Brazilian, Salvadoran and Caribbean influences, in varying degrees of authenticity. Although little on Aji's menu makes much classical sense, much of it is very good, offering a güero-friendly TripTik of cocina alta, a reiteration of ingredients and flavors that present Central and South America as a single place, possessed of a single, overarching culinary gestalt.

Pupusas El Lucero is the second restaurant for the owners of Littleton's El Lucero Salvadoran & Mexican Restaurant. This outpost has a slimmer menu focused on the cuisine of El Salvador; think pupusas, camarones and pollo salteados, and sopa de mondongo (a stew of tripe, cow's feet and veggies served only on the weekends).

As you're waiting for your meal to arrive at this Salvadoran eatery, listen for the sounds of clapping from the kitchen: It's proof that your pupusa is being made to order. You can get the corn-masa pockets stuffed with anything from cheese to loroco (a tropical flower bud) to shrimp, or go loco and opt for the Loca, a monster filled with pork, beans, cheese, loroco, zucchini and chicken. Diners who have yet to succumb to the charms of the pupusa will find plenty of other dishes on the menu as well — though they'd do well to brush up on the differences between familiar Mexican dishes and owner Claudia Quijada's recipes of the same name, which reflect her upbringing in El Salvador and are completely different from what's served at most Denver taquerias. (Chicharrón, for example, is not fried pork skin, but fried pork minced almost to a paste, while enchiladas resemble a tostada.) The menu is a great foray into the underrepresented cuisine of Central America, as well as a great reminder of culinary diversity south of the border.