Review El Tucan Restaurant - Ottawa

Very clean. Food is fresh made to order! Very very tasty! Look at my pics and you can see very very authentic! I highly reccomend this place!

Very pleased with this restaurant. We had a few appetizers, which were very good. The ceviche was fresher than I expected it to be; good and flavorful. The staff are friendly and attentive.

A great family run restaurant. The staff are friendly, hilarious and make you feel like you are part of the family. Really great food too. I went with a couple who are friends of mine (that's right third wheeling it to the max!) and everything that we ordered looked amazing and tasted even better. If you haven't gone to this restaurant, do yourself a favor and go!

We came across this El Salvadorian restaurant by accident. The decor is maybe a little dusty and run down but the food was delicious. The service was friendly and helpful The food was all made in house. They offered traditional plates. It was hard to decide which to pick so we will definitely return and tell people to check it out.

Authentic Salvadorian food. The pupusas are amazing and filling. The sauerkraut and salsa rocha is home made and delicious. Platano frito with sour cream is heavenly! We always have Horchata as it's so tasty and refreshing. The service is superb! They go above and beyond to make you feel welcome. Best Salvadorian in Ottawa!

If you like El Salvadoran food, Tukan is worth a try. Their pupusas are fairly authentic, but of course like all Salvadoran restaurantso in Canada they don't use the real cheese that you get in El Salvador, which is much more salty. The staff at Tukan is very warm and friendly and will make you feel welcome. The cost is moderate.

Love the pupusas here and the service is great as well. Awesome guacamole, awesome tacos. Very authentic and one of my new favourite local spots

My second visit. Pupusas are best deal on the menu, and oh so tasty. Low key. Recommending to all my friends.

4.5 stars PAPUSAS GALORE! They even offer shrimp papusas, which I have not seen other places. Delicious food and the papusas are priced at $3. 3 papusas will fill you for under $10. Just be mindful that cans of pop go for $2.50 and if you go on a hot summer day, don't expect to escape the heat, as their A/C comes from a window unit high up on the wall and it doesn't seem to offer any relief.

The mame has changed to Las Brisas but the food is amazing. We love the pupusas and curtido is the best. As a Native from El Salvador, I highly recommend it.

Great place for a Decent bite or a cultural experience, the restaurant is family run and they take great pride in their work. Feel free to relax and enjoy your time. Ask for up coming events iv noticed that they hold events often

Pleasant surprise! Authentic Salvadoran dishes you won't find elsewhere. Incredible pupusas, tamales, and mole! Ill be back:)

Best pupusas in town, place isn't much to look at but hot damn I've never had a bad meal there.

Delicious little hidden gem and really reasonably priced. We got mixed papusa, empanada and pasteles and I can recommend them all.

Pupusa pupusa good as always. The mondogo soup hit the spot just nice after hang over. A bit pricy for pupusa. But still good. Very nice service.

Delicious Central American food in a very simple location. The woman who has been there serving every time we've gone is absolutely charming!

Ordered chicken tamale, soup and cheese and mix pupusas. Loved it. Would definitely order there again. Hit the spot...

Good, simple, honest El Salvadorean favourites. I tried El Tucan for the first time yesterday and was not disappointed. The yuca con chicharron offered a generous portion of fried pork and crisp yuca with curtido and salsa. The pupusas were crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, with a good ration of filling to dough. The decor is unassuming but pleasant and the service was very friendly. Another Vanier gem!

Fantastic food and service!. Stopped by El Tucan last night for a quick dinner, the service was efficient and friendly. We had the pupusas (cheese and pork/cheese and bean), which were great and the pasteles, which had the most amazingly flaky crust - a must have. Make sure to take advantage of their homemade hot sauces and pickled slaw - they really add another layer of flavor to the pupusas. Can't wait to go back and try other dishes!

Uhmmm great food!. If you love Latin food,... Beans, tortillas, pupusas, etc<br/>This the place !

Good food. We had dinner here last night - ordered a few Salvadoran dishes. The food was good, although the meat on one of our dishes was really dry and over-cooked. The service was prompt and friendly - they didn't rush us when we weren't ready to order, and were helpful and patient with our Spanish pronunciation of the dish names.<br/><br/>We'll be back to try more of the menu.

Great service and solid food. I love this place. Not because it's the best mexican in town (though it's def top 5) but for the overall vibe and good food. The service is great and you feel like you're visiting your El Salvadorian relatives. Tex Mex is simple but delish. Can recommend the beef burrito and beef chimichangas. Great guacamole as well.

Exactly what I expected, delicious!. I visited this resto with a friend on a weeknight and am already looking forward to going back to try more of the menu! Not fancy, but that's a good thing because it would be out of place on this strip of Montreal Rd. The menu is interesting because people not looking for something different can order standard grill-type items like a club sandwich, they also have a tex-mex section, and then there is also the El Salvadorian section, in which they specialize. I ordered from the latter and it was delicious; my plate of deep fried food coming with a coleslaw, tomato sauce, and hot sauce as condiments - perfect to balance off the heavy items.<br/><br/>The girl that served us was great. Explained the menu to us, gave us recommendations, and was really friendly.<br/><br/>Would highly recommend if you are looking for something very reasonably priced, good flavour, and different!

Very nice service, great food. El Tucan is a quiet spot in Vanier. Inside the small restaurant you can see a TV playing El Salvadorean programming, which is nice and shows that you're getting authentic food. I had an cow hoof soup (Sopa de Pata [Mondongos] on the menu) which was very hearty and had a great marrow taste to it and a platter called Yuca Con Chincharron, which was a mixed plate with a crispy pork with a light, mayo-free slaw and some sort of root, maybe manioc?<br/><br/>My partner had a standard tex-mex fare--three enchiladas, which she said was very tasty. <br/><br/>We also had a pupusa, which I guess is the El Salvadorean equivalent to a patty, empanada, or samosa. It had a very fine, consistent texture and a great taste.<br/><br/>Our server was a very friendly woman who clearly loved El Salvador, was enthusiastic about food recommendations, and made sure to take care of us. Great experience, would definitely go again.

Just amazing. The service is amazing. The waitresses are very very friendly. The food is a true authentic salvadorian taste. They really are world famous for there pupusa. You know that the food is good when the language is spoken. All thought they are a bit pricey you will not be disappointed. 5 on 5

Bland Hole in the Wall. So I get a text from my sister saying she just had an authentic quesadilla at a little hole in the wall place. As our fridge is broken and all our food is spoiled I figure 'no time like the present' to check this place out. Parking was a nightmare but at least I nailed my parallel parking. So I was in a chipper mood when I went in. There was a sign on the door stating they were closing @ 6pm because of technical difficulties. As I was their only customer, I suspect that lack of customers was their real difficulty. The man and woman looked spooked when I arrived and said nothing. I asked if they were still open and they said 'yes'. I chose my own seat since 'yes' seemed to be the extend of their conversation. I ordered the Sopa de Pata which is a soup made from cow hoofs, corn, cabbage, squash, cassava and mondongo. Wow was it bland! From the base to the vegetables it had NO taste. Oh well, at least I tried it, I thought. Then I ordered a pastele which is a corn pastry filled with pork and vegetables. This had more flavour than the soup but I still needed to add cilantro and salt which was a let down for a pork dish. It was suppose to come with a sauce and cole slaw. It didn't. Finally I ordered their burrito plate served with their house sauce, salad and rice. Now I always enjoy trying a new 'House Sauce' cause this is where people get inventive. Not this place. It was a luke warm red sauce that didn't even taste of tomatoes! The chicken hadn't been seasoned and there were no refriend beans to be found. The rice was heavily buttered but still bland. The salad looked nice but instead of having a choice of dressings, they put a warm dollop of sour cream on it. I didn't finish my meal. For the first time I actually left after only 3 bites. I did leave a tip because the service was fast but it is not a cheerful place to eat. You can tell they are on their last legs. I wish people would learn that it is the FOOD that people are willing to pay for, not the flatscreens on the wall!

Lunch fare. I had the pollo asado which is a Salvadorian barbeque chicken dish with (chimol) pico de gallo with a side of rice, refried beans and salad as well as a corn tortilla. It was authentic homemade food served with jalepeno salsa. If you are looking for a dish as close to actually being in El Salvador, this is the place to go. There's spanish music playing and the decor matches. You can enjoy your meal outdoors on the back patio as well. The waitress was prompt and friendly and her service was very good.