Guides ·Food & drink

Plato típico: the default order

If you eat one thing in La Paz department, make it the plato típico. It arrives as a plate of grilled or fried beef, sometimes chuleta or carne asada, alongside refried beans, rice, fried plantain in either sweet tajadas or thick slices, a wedge of fresh cuajada cheese, a spoon of the thick soured cream Hondurans call mantequilla crema, some chopped cabbage salad and a stack of hand-patted corn tortillas. Prices run $3.50 to $6 depending on whether you are in a comedor near the market or a proper restaurant on the highway strip.

The regional detail worth noticing is the dairy. This is Lenca highland country with small-scale cheesemaking, and the cuajada and crema on your plate are frequently local and considerably better than what the same dish delivers on the coast. Order it for lunch, which is the main meal of the day and when kitchens are freshest, and ask for extra tortillas, which are usually included or cost a few cents. It is also the best single test of a new comedor: if the plato típico is good, everything else on the board will be.

Baleadas and the flour-tortilla economy

The baleada is Honduras in one hand: a thick wheat flour tortilla folded over refried beans, crumbled hard cheese and mantequilla crema. The simple version, called sencilla, costs $0.60 to $1.25. Add scrambled egg, avocado, chorizo or shredded beef and you are at $1.50 to $2.50, which is still a full breakfast. In La Paz city, the stands worth finding are the ones that open around 6am near the market and the bus drop points, where the tortilla is patted and griddled in front of you rather than reheated.

The quality difference between a good and bad baleada is entirely the tortilla, which should be soft, slightly blistered and warm enough to melt the cheese. Beans should be smooth and dark, not watery. Order two if you are hungry, and eat them standing at the counter with a coffee for $0.50 or a bag of sweet horchata-style drink. Baleada stands are also the cheapest reliable food after 7pm in both towns, when comedores have closed and your options narrow to fried chicken and this.

Ticucos, montucas and the corn kitchen

Ticucos are the dish that marks this region out, a Lenca corn dough tamale filled with mashed beans and often the flower bud called loroco, wrapped in a corn leaf and simmered rather than steamed. They are a highland speciality of the La Paz and Intibucá zone, they turn up in markets and at fairs more than on restaurant menus, and they cost roughly $0.50 to $1 each. Buy two with a cup of coffee and you have breakfast for under $2. Ask at market fondas in Marcala and La Paz city, especially at weekends.

The other corn preparations to know: nacatamales, the big Sunday tamale of corn dough with pork, rice, potato and olives wrapped in banana leaf, sold for $1.50 to $3 and traditionally a weekend and Christmas item; and montucas, made with sweet young corn and often filled with chicken, closer to a sweet-savoury pudding. Both are made in batches at home and sold by the doorway sign or by word of mouth, so ask your guesthouse rather than looking for a restaurant. Sunday morning is the reliable window for all of it.

Soups that count as a full meal

Honduran soups are enormous and cost $4 to $6, which makes them the best value on any menu. Sopa de mondongo, made with tripe, yuca, plantain and vegetables in a saffron-tinted broth, is the classic weekend restorative and is served in a bowl the size of a small basin with rice and tortillas alongside. Sopa de frijoles with pork ribs is the everyday version, thick and smoky. Sopa de res, beef with big chunks of root vegetable and corn on the cob, is the family Sunday order and easily feeds two moderate appetites.

Look for the highland speciality sopa de capirotadas, cheese-and-egg fritters simmered in a tomato broth, which is meatless and turns up in comedores in the coffee zone. Soups are almost always a midday item and sell out; by 2.30pm the pot may be empty. Order one at 12.30pm, ask for the tortillas warm, and skip a starter, because nothing about a Honduran soup portion is modest. In cool Marcala, this is what you want after a morning at a waterfall rather than another plate of fried chicken.

Coffee, chilate and what to drink

You are in the home of the Café Marcala denomination of origin, the region behind Honduras's most internationally recognised beans, so drink the coffee seriously here. In Marcala, cafés and co-op storefronts pour properly prepared cups for $1 to $2, and you can taste washed and honey-processed lots side by side if you ask. In a comedor anywhere in the department, coffee is $0.40 to $0.75 and comes sweet and strong, sometimes from the same farms that export at a premium. Beans to take home run $6 to $12 a pound at co-op shops such as those run by the local producer organisations.

Beyond coffee, order horchata made with rice and cinnamon, fresh licuados of banana or papaya for $1 to $1.50, and the corn-based drinks that show up around fairs and markets: chilate, atol de elote when young corn is in season, and the sour fermented atol chuco. Bottled soft drinks are everywhere for about $0.60. Beer is $1 to $2 in a pulpería, $2 to $3 in a bar. Highland mornings genuinely justify a second coffee, and at these prices nobody is counting.

Snacks, bread and sweets

Honduran bakeries are cheap and reliable, and every town has one. Look for semita, a dense sweet layered bread often with pineapple jam, sold by the slab for $0.50 to $1.50; pan de yema, a rich eggy roll; and quesadilla hondureña, which is a baked sweet cheese cake rather than anything Mexican, sold in wedges for about $0.75. Rosquillas, the ring-shaped corn and cheese biscuits designed for dunking in coffee, are sold in bags for $1 to $2 at markets and bus stops and travel better than anything else here.

Street snacks worth stopping for: grilled corn on the cob rubbed with salt and lime for about $0.50, yuca frita with pickled cabbage and chicharrón for $1.50 to $3, fried plantain chips in bags, and enchiladas hondureñas, which are flat fried tortillas topped with seasoned meat, cabbage, cheese and beet, at $0.75 to $1.50 each. Near the western side of the department, closer to the Salvadoran border around Marcala, pupusas appear in the evenings for $0.60 to $1 apiece and are a perfectly good dinner for $3.

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