Puerto Rico was the first Latino settlement in the New World, and as such, it has long been an amazing crossroads of cultural influence.
This is reflected in its varied and distinctive cuisine. But in spite of all the charm and appeal this food has, it's never achieved the popularity of Cuban or Mexican in this country. Perhaps that's why El Coqui, our one Puerto Rican restaurant, feels compelled to refer to itself as Caribbean, a label which doesn't do it justice.
The restaurant, named for a tree frog native to that island, (so named because it makes the noise "co-kee, co-kee" when excited) is in an undistinguished mini-mall. It's a pleasant but bland room, done up in white shutters, with a tile floor, beach mural on a rear wall and green tablecloths.
Normally, spicy Latin music plays on the sound system, and the clientele tends to be Latino too, though not necessarily Puerto Rican. On one visit, the Spanish TV channel Univision was filming a commercial there, so it seems the restaurant has some cachet in the local Latino community.
The cooking is somewhat similar to Cuban, in the sense that ingredients like garlic, rice, black beans, starchy root vegetables, pork and chicken are usually on the docket. But to my mind, this cooking is more exotic, and unfamiliar in a way that Cuban is not.
Everybody, it seems, orders starters like pastelillos, piononos or bacalaitos, uniquely Puerto Rican finger foods that are almost impossible to stop eating.
Then, they move onto main dishes like pernil (roasted leg of pork positively reeking with chopped garlic); mofongos (mashed plantains flecked with pork cracklings and even more garlic); a variety of breaded, pan-fried meats; or entrée soups like sancocho (a thick porridge laced with corn and melting, tender chunks of stewed, chunked beef).
The pastelillos alone merit a detour. Picture a crisp pastry shell with a bubbly outer crust, inside of which is a generous portion of spiced ground-beef filling. Then there are piononos, a mashed, ripe plantain (a kind of starchy banana) batter filled with more of the same ground-beef filling.
Bacalaitos—golden-fried discs that may be 50 percent codfish—come three to an order, spewing hot oil. The most unusual appetizer is alcapurria de guineo, a fritter that uses dough cunningly made from two purees, plantain and yautia, a yam-like root. It has an arrestingly complex flavor you may not recognize. Don't try these at home, by the way. They are devilishly hard to make.
As delicious as these starters are, beer is required to cut through all the grease, and I don't recommend eating too many at one sitting. Main dishes, however, are all delicious, and a lot more digestible.
Mofongos are the place to start. The menu's description of them as mashed plantains with garlic, spices and broth is inadequate. What comes is a crunchy, delicious mound that looks like unmolded Jell-O, but tastes like a meaty stuffing.
The mofongo I remember from my visit to San Juan had more pork cracklings in the mash and was considerably more moist, so it makes sense to order mofongo con camarones, with shrimp bathed in spicy red gravy, so the dish will not seem too dry. Mofongo chicharon de pollo comes with four or five hunks of fried chicken, skin on, and a bowl of garlicky broth. There also is the option to have your mofongo with carne frita: chunks of pork fried to a crackling crunch.
Two more main dishes not to miss: pernil, which is shredded pork leg (my colleague found his overcooked, but I adored mine) tinged with the perfumes of garlic and bitter orange; and pollo encebollada, baked chicken smothered in onions—one of the best-loved dishes in Puerto Rico.
The best way to enjoy them is with arroz blanco con habichuelas—white rice with broad beans stewed in gravy—or the uniquely Puerto Rican arroz con gandules: yellow rice with tiny pigeon peas that resemble lentils, available as a side dish for an extra charge. Pasteles, Puerto Rican tamales, also make a nice side. The one caveat is a rather long wait for them to come to the table.
As a concession to popular tastes, the restaurant does a perfectly acceptable sandwich Cubano (ham, cheese, roast pork, pickles, mayo and mustard on bread that has been pressed on a grill), and a few nondescript dishes like fried chicken with french fries, from an abbreviated kid's menu.
You can wash it all down with the nonalcoholic malt beverage Malta, a Puerto Rican institution; various too-sweet tropical sodas; or proper Cuban coffee.
For dessert, there is a nice cheese flan, and when available, rice pudding called arroz con dulce. Try as I might, I've never been able to induce Carmen, one of the owners, to make tembleque, a wonderful Puerto Rican coconut pudding.
Guess I'll just have to visit old San Juan for that.