El Caldero Sabroso

"The Tasty Cauldron"

Overview

El Caldero Sabroso (ECS) offers down-home meals at reasonable prices...unlike its glossy competitors that seem to capture the patronage of most tourists in Old San Juan. Unfortunately, ECS does not receive the attention it deserves. During our three visits to ECS, we only encountered a handful of other diners. The Old San Juan culinary scene would suffer a great loss if ECS went out of business. You can help avoid this tragedy: The next time you go to Old San Juan, eat a meal at ECS. You won't be disappointed!


Service/Atmosphere


ECS is a one-woman operation. That woman is Maria. She greets, cooks, serves -- all with a warm smile under her striped chef's hat. We never had to wait long for our food. Then again, we were usually the only patrons! If you happen to hit a busy time, we suggest ordering the pastelillos (see below for details) as an appetizer: Maria cranked them out within five minutes after we order them...and, boy, were they good! Or just hang out in the front dining area. You can watch Hollywood movies dubbed in Spanish on the little flat screen TV in the corner. Or, better yet, watch Maria at work in her little kitchen just beyond the counter where the cash register sits. We were particularly impressed by the fact that Maria still relied on such low-tech devices as her giant stone mortar and pestle -- now that's some culinary TLC!

Food


Dish No. 1: Mofongo with chicken

We sampled this traditional dish at pretty much every eatery we visited in Puerto Rico. ECS's mofongo with chicken ranked among the best, along with Mi Casita's red snapper variation. The key is the sauce. Without it, mofongo tends to be dry and bland. The chicken mofongo at ECS came drizzled with a light garlic sauce, that doubled as dressing for the salad encircling the plate. The sauce was so good that Larry-Mao temporarily overcame his aversion to iceberg lettuce!



Dish No. 2: Pastelillos


Maria translated the name of this delicious snack as "turnover." Due to linguistic barriers, there was some confusion about what they were filled with. Indeed, we weren't sure until we actually bit into them. So here's your options: beef or guava with cheese. (Belda-Mao suggested combining the beef and guava, but Maria vetoed this plan with a good-natured but skeptical look. Belda-Mao still maintains that beef and guava would have made a good combo...) We ordered both: the former as an appetizer, the latter as an after-meal dessert. Both were amazing. The beef filling consisted of (surprise!) ground beef along with little bits of potato and tomato. We don't know what was used to season the beef, but it was very aromatic, like five-spices (五香). The guava-cheese turnover had a more complicated structure. If you took a cross-section, it would look like this (from outside to inside): fried pastry crust, a pocket of some type of white cheese (maybe mozzarella?), and a core of lightly sweetened guava paste. Belda-mao fell for the savoriness of the beef mix, while Larry-mao was enraptured by the sweet-salty contrast of the guava-cheese.

Conclusion

ECS has everything a good little chan mao could want: tasty food, reasonable prices (we spent about $20-26 for the two of us), and an adorable proprietor in a poofy chef hat. Two high paws for ECS!

• Address: 366 San Francisco Street, San Juan, 00901

Special thanks to moncheoPR for the pic of ECS's sign!

Mi Casita Restaurant

Mi Casita, Su Casita

Address: Avenida Isla Verde, Isle Verde, Puerto Rico

General

Mi Casita Restaurant ("casita" = small house) is a lonely island of local flavor in an ocean of fast-food joints -- a.k.a., Isle Verde. If you're having a hard time finding Mi Casita, just look for the giant Burger King sign. They're both in the Plazoleta Mall on Avenida Isla Verde.

Service

Mi Casita uses a tripartite division of labor: first, a host guides you to your seat; second, a waiter takes your order; third, some guy who you've never seen before brings you the food. You may have to wait a good while before completing these three stages, as Mi Casita tends to be packed with tourists. Finally, you grab anyone who looks like he/she works there and beg for your check. Good luck with this last part: I swear the employees are better at avoiding eye contact than an insecure adolescent. While you may occasionally want to throw silverware at them, the staff is actually very friendly. We got the same waitress for a couple of meals. She remembered us the second time and even tried to give Larry-Mao a mini-lesson on the origin of the name, asapao, a type of Puerto Rican stew. Small wonder the service was so slow!

Food

We were unimpressed with breakfast, which suffered from two major defects: First, the breakfast menu is very egg-centric -- a problem for an egg-o-phobe like Belda-Mao. (Random fact: Did you know Alfred Hitchcock had an egg phobia? Check out this crazy quote.) Second, the offerings lacked local flavor. Most menu items can also be found at I-HOP. A bright spot in this otherwise lackluster breakfast spread was the "home fries" -- which weren't fries at all but rather boiled potatoes in a rich, tomato-based sauce. At least, that's what we got the first time we ordered the home fries. The second time, we got regular old french fries. But don't despair. If french fries materialize before your eyes, you can always wash away your disappointment with a cocktail (or two) from the shockingly extensive list of alcoholic beverages...we say "shockingly" because it was the breakfast menu!

Mi Casita really shines at lunch and dinner. We, however, can only comment on two dishes, because we loved both dishes so much that we ordered them again the second time we went!

Dish No. 1: Mofongo with Red Snapper

This was the first dish to enter our mouths in Puerto Rico. Mofongo is a staple of Puerto Rican cuisine. Just ask any guide book. Accordingly, we sampled the mofongo at pretty much every restaurant we patronized on the island. Mi Casita's mofongo with red snapper was our favorite by far.

What is mofongo? The foundation is comprised of mashed-up, fried plantains. To this is added some type of meat or seafood. Beyond this basic structure, we observed two basic styles: dry and wet (i.e., with sauce). We vastly preferred the "wet" variety. The plantain mash in mofongos doesn't have a lot of taste by itself. It can also be pretty darn dry. The sauce contributes not only flavor but also much-needed moisture to the mix.

The sauce in Mi Casita's red snapper mofongo was tomato-based with garlic and some kind of parsley-looking flakes. Belda-Mao's fork was a blur of chrome as she transported bite after bite of the delicious plantain mash to her eagerly awaiting taste buds. I might have protested were I not so enticed by the second of our dishes...

Dish No. 2: Asopao de Pollo

We fell in love with this hearty soup in its rustic little pot. As anyone who has glanced at a recipe for asopao knows, the soup is complex medley of ingredients. Mi Casita's version was no exception. We can only point out the obvious components: rice, tomato, and chicken (two giant thighs). Whatever else went into the soup, it put big smiles on us two chan-maos. Tostones -- sliced green (unripe) plantains that are twice fried -- came on the side. Although dry and flavorless by themselves, the tostones were great for dipping into the broth. As the broth dwindled, we fished out the chicken thighs and happily gnawed away.

Conclusion

Mi Casita's down-home cooking had us chan-maos purring with contentment. We give two paws up!