This story is part of our January cover story, 55 Restaurants Serving Up Budget-Friendly Meals Across Northern Virginia.
Is it an empanada? A pot pie? A soup dumpling? Yes! Meet the salteña, one of NoVA’s best budget meals you may not have tried.
Featuring chicken or steak in a sweet dough with a braided edge, the saucy pastries ooze spicy goodness, along with green peas, potatoes, boiled eggs, and olives. The salteña is native to Bolivia, and in our region, we’re lucky to have lots of representation for the South American specialty. Here are five places you can get them.
Betty’s Café
Our favorite spot for a piquant salteña is this bakery and restaurant in Sterling’s Clock Tower Center. For $4, you can get a full meal of either a chicken or beef salteña, but at prices like that, why stop there?
Appetizers, which cost between $3 and $4, are all memorable eats. Order a couple of humintas, corn and stretchy cheese wrapped in a corn husk, and a glass of peachy, cinnamon-redolent mocochinchi to drink with it. Cuñapes are baked yuca rolls, also filled with cheese, while fried cheese empanadas, dusted with powdered sugar, border on dessert.
In the market for more than these petite eats? Betty’s friendly staff serves heaping plates of dishes like kepery, brisket with cheesy rice, plantains, and beet salad. The dishes are big enough to share, so the price tags that hover around $20 actually aren’t so bad. 46950 Community Plz., Ste. C, Sterling
More Places to Find Salteñas
Bakery Bread and Grill
11186 Main St., Fairfax
Luzmary’s Bolivian Restaurant
7151 Route 29, Falls Church
Luzmila’s Bolivian Restaurant
809 W. Broad St., Falls Church
Pan-American Bakery & Grill
Multiple area locations
Feature image of Betty’s Café by Mike Ramm
This story originally ran in our January Issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
